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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 106 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SHOWERS SHOWERS

43 37

CROSS CAMPUS

RECONCILIATION “ERMENI” OPENS AT THE YALE REP

ASSISTED SUICIDE

DJIBOUTI TO YALE

Bill makes third appearance in two years in state legislature.

DELEGATION TO EXAMINE CLIMATE CHANGE.

PAGES 12–13 CULTURE

PAGE 5 CITY

PAGE 7 UNIVERSITY

Stark kicks off Ward 1 alder campaign

First daughter, again? Yes,

we know. Malia Obama came to campus yesterday, and after news broke that the first daughter had plans to visit Brown and other New England schools, we figured that she’d be stopping by. The University sells itself (with some help from the tour guides), so here’s hoping Malia continues the tradition started by Barbara Pierce Bush ’04.

Ticket Office will continue offering student tickets to Friday’s first-round NCAA men’s hockey tournament game between the Elis and Boston University today, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those buying in will receive admission and transportation for $10, thanks to joint efforts between the Athletic Department and the Whaling Crew.

Still reeling. A preview of the

tournament published by The Daily Gopher, an SBNation affiliate covering University of Minnesota athletics, framed the Bulldogs as the Northeast Regional’s “caboose” while acknowledging continued exasperation over the Gophers’ demise against the 2013 title team. Roll Dogs.

Fish Tea. Today, Morse College will host Jeff Conine — winner of two World Series rings with the then-Florida Marlins — in a Master’s Tea.

PAGE 14 SPORTS

Admissions changes FERPA policy

Stark added that the Ward 1 alder should “create a culture of positive citizenship on campus.”

“Our city doesn’t benefit when we sit on the sidelines and shut ourselves inside an ivory tower,” Stark said.

Instead, he called for a Ward 1 alder who can spur Yale students to action in the New Haven community, emphasizing the need for an alder who knocks on doors, engages

After several hundred students requested access to their educational files, the Undergraduate Admissions Office decided to delete its evaluative admissions data for matriculated students.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a federal law that grants students the right to inspect and review their education records. Although FERPA has been on the books since 1974, a group of Stanford students who run an anonymous newsletter called “The Fountain Hopper” brought attention to the law in January by using it to gain access to their files. The Fountain Hopper then published their findings and encouraged other students to follow suit, resulting in an increase in FERPA requests at universities across the country.

Previously, Yale students who filed FERPA requests were given access to documents such as the comments written on their files by admissions officers and interview reports written by alumni. But on Jan. 30 — roughly two weeks after a flood of students began to request their records following the Stanford case — the Admissions Office changed its file-retention policy to return to an earlier practice of deleting admissions documents regularly, which was in place prior to 2008.

“In the paper world, admissions documents were disposed of on a regular basis,

SEE STARK PAGE 4

SEE FERPA PAGE 4

the Undergraduate Admissions Office elected to promote the Yale Political Union on its Facebook page Tuesday evening. Something tells us, though, that Malia gets enough politics at home.

The hunt begins. The Yale

Women’s swimming and diving finishes season at NCAA meet.

BY TYLER FOGGATT STAFF REPORTER

Try something new. Fittingly,

Starstruck. No, this isn’t about the students who just could not resist taking selfies in Commons with the First Daughter in the background.

This is about Aeronautica 2015, the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association’s symposium featuring innovations in the field of reaching for the stars.

FISH OUT OF WATER

PATRICK PEOPLES/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

In launching his campaign for Ward 1 alder, Fish Stark ’17 called on Yale students to be more involved in New Haven.

BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER The November elections may still be eight months away, but Fish Stark ’17 officially launched his campaign for Ward 1 alder at an event in Dwight Hall yesterday.

Stark declared his candidacy before spring break and is currently the only candidate in the race. The kickoff event for Stark’s campaign featured an array of speakers from the

Yale and New Haven communities alike. Roughly 50 people attended the event, a mixture of those formally involved in Stark’s campaign as canvassers or organizers and interested Yale students.

Before the event, the specifics of Stark’s candidacy remained uncertain. But in his speech, he offered details regarding his goals and initiatives as Ward 1 alder, calling for Yale students to become more involved with the city surrounding them.

Unsigned letter claims “negative atmosphere” in Spanish Dept

BY EMMA PLATOFF STAFF REPORTER On March 6, professors and graduate students in Spanish and Portuguese arrived at their department mailboxes to find an anonymous letter expressing grave concerns about their department. The letter, which said it was written by a group of graduate students, was also passed along to several top administrators, including University President Peter Salovey, University Provost Benjamin Polak, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tamar Gendler and Graduate School Dean Lynn Cooley.

“The graduate students of

Spanish and Portuguese wish to make known the level of discontent that we feel as a result of the highly negative atmosphere that has been created in our department,” the letter read. “Many issues related to Spanish and Portuguese are blatant acts of discrimination and harassment.”

Citing a November News article about the department, which reported student and faculty concerns about budget opacity and an atmosphere of intimidation, as “the tip of the proverbial iceberg,” the letter detailed five specific complaints against the department, ranging from curricular requirements to accusations of

sexual harassment. It described a department fraught with fear and intimidation — one that current and former graduate students have complained of in the past — and called on the administration to investigate and resolve their concerns.

“The letter reflects a genuine sense of discomfort and a really deep sense of grievance on the part of the graduate students,” Spanish professor Aníbal González GRD ’82 said. “On the whole it certainly documents the attitude I feel has become prevalent among our graduate students: that the department is not a welcoming place for them. Also, it clearly reflects a sense that things seem to have

reached a breaking point.”

On Tuesday afternoon, more than two weeks after the initial distribution, Polak, Cooley and Gendler sent an email to the department’s faculty, staff and students announcing a broad review of the department’s climate for working and learning. Leading the review will be Jamaal Thomas, from Yale’s Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, alongside Barbara Goren, an independent consultant. Neither Cooley nor Gendler returned request for comment as of Tuesday night.

“The intellectual quality of the Department’s faculty is second to none, and, year after year, it attracts outstanding

graduate students to its program,” the email reads. “Sustaining the intellectual vitality of a department requires a sense of common purpose and mutual respect at all levels, and, for this reason, we wish to ensure that the educational and employment environment in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese matches its scholarly reputation.”

Three professors interviewed said the review is a positive development.

“To say that [the review] was long overdue would be an understatement,” González said.

SEE SPANISH DEPT. PAGE 6

Get smart. An article in

The New York Times’ Bits blog Monday revealed a new partnership between Yale’s play2Prevent educational video game laboratory and developer Yogome. The goal?

To create software that will help children solve 3 + 4 with exceeding speed and accuracy, at least according to the article’s lead photo.

She’s smart. A post on

YaleNews yesterday featured a video message from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79, who encouraged viewers to chip into the 2015 Yale Day of Service. Sotomayor is serving as an honorary chair for the event, which takes place on May 9.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

2011 New Haven Police release information on a shooting at Toad’s Place earlier that week.

Follow along for the News’ latest.

Twitter | @yaledailynews

y MORE ONLINE goydn.com/xcampus

Graduate students discuss mental health

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER Nearly one month after students and University administrators clashed at a mental health open forum, another meeting was held to address issues specific to graduate students.

Over 60 graduate students gathered in Levinson Auditorium at the Yale Law School Tuesday evening for a meeting before administrators at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Yale Health. Graduate School Dean Lynn Cooley was joined by Director of Yale Health Paul Genecin, Mental Health and Counseling Director Lorraine Siggins, MH&C Associate Director Howard Blue and Chief of Student Health and Athletic Medicine Andrew Gotlin. During the 90-minute event, students voiced concerns with Yale MH&C’s appointment proce-

dures, raised the possibility for collaboration between MH&C and student-staffed mental healthcare providers and asked whether Yale’s mental health resources adequately serve graduate students.

At one point during the discussion, Anne Schiff GRD ’18 asked if Yale feels that it has a different obligation to graduate students, who use Yale Health as their primary healthcare provider, compared to undergraduates, many of whom remain on their parents’ plans. Administrators responded that all Yale Health clinicians are trained to deal with the needs of graduate students.

“In clinical care, in treatment of people for whatever kind of clinical condition they have we, as all healthcare providers, use criteria of medical necessity,” SEE MENTAL HEALTH PAGE 6

Dozens of students hit by credit card fraud

MARISA LOWE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Yale Police Department is currently investigating a spike in fraudulent credit card charges experienced by some Yale students, many of whom are students at the School of Art.

BY VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTER Following several Facebook posts about a sudden spike in credit card fraud cases around Yale, students have taken it upon themselves to contact the Yale Police Department and instigate an investigation.

Kate Ruggeri ART ’16, a student at the School of Art, first posted a message on her Facebook page earlier this month inquiring as to whether, like her, other students had experienced credit card fraud. According to Ruggeri, her post received more than 80 comSEE CREDIT FRAUD PAGE 4

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “Seriously?” yaledailynews.com/opinion

GUEST COLUMNIST BREA BAKER

'ALEX' ON 'DON'T RALLY FOR STUDENT POWER'

GUE ST COLUMNIST ADRIANA MIELE

Thirteen Fewer white people in cabins reasons to care I C

riticism regarding the treatment of students at Yale Mental Health and Counseling has justifiably mounted. The tragic suicide of a fellow student, as well as the personal experiences a brave few have expressed about Yale Health, highlight the institution’s shortcomings and other forms of mistreatment. The honest discourse revolving around recent events on this campus has raised many questions about where MH&C falls short in providing for students. Calls for more transparency, bigger budgets and a more qualified team of clinicians have sounded loudly, but what I haven’t seen is a critique of our role in making Yale a better place for those dealing with emotional battles.

"Thirteen Reasons," a novel

by Jay Asher, is told from the perspective of a girl who committed suicide and left behind 13 cassette tapes telling 13 different stories that influenced her decision to take her own life. Not every cassette tape tells the story of someone who bullied or hurt her, though those are in abundance. The people on the tapes are shocked to find that they played a role in her demise.

The novel demonstrates the importance of prevention rather than reaction.

By the 13th tape, Hannah is intent on committing suicide and reaches out to her school guidance counselor as a last resort. She tells the counselor everything that’s been going through her head, and he offers to help her press charges against those who have hurt her. When she dismisses that idea, the counselor insensitively suggests she move on.

Hannah walks away from the meeting more sure than ever that suicide is her best option and ends the tape with “thank you.”

Clearly the counselor failed her and was not trained for the gravity of Hannah’s situation. Yet the cassette tape that caught my attention most was the one where Hannah writes an anonymous letter to her class admitting that she has toyed with the idea of suicide. When the teacher opens the note up for discussion, her peers seem more annoyed than concerned. Her pain is an inconvenience for them. They have no idea who wrote the note, but they belittle her feelings all the same.

This was cassette seven, long before Hannah even decides to seek “professional” help. This rang true to me. Cassettes eight to 13 might never have happened had Hannah’s classmates took more notice and been more

willing to help the author of the note.

Often we forget that we play a major role in how our peers feel. The counselor had only met with Hannah once. Those students in her classroom saw her every day. They were more privy to the signs of her depression. She wrote a note to them, albeit anonymously, and rather than lifting the anonymous plea and offering themselves as a shoulder, they dismissed the note as an unwanted interruption during their class period.

How often have you seen a friend who didn’t seem like themselves, but dismissed it because you had tech rehearsal that night and “ain’t nobody got time for that?” How many times did you do a double take at the girl yelling into her cell phone and not stop to ask if she was okay because “that’s none of your business?” How often do we ignore the signs until a suicide note is posted on Facebook? How often do we claim to care when really it’s a matter of caring when it's too late?

MH&C has major adjustments to make in crafting more welcoming and efficient intake procedures, but first we must look into the mirror.

Let’s remember to be aware of the part we have to play as well. Instead of exchanging half-hearted commitments to “grab lunch,” how about we form genuine relationships? Let’s stop letting our own worlds distract us from the people around us whom we love.

We must take time out of our busy schedules to study the signs of suicidal victims.

According to Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, some major warning signs that someone may be thinking about or planning to commit suicide include: making comments about being hopeless, helpless or worthless, a sudden, unexpected switch from being very sad to being very calm or appearing to be happy, losing interest in things one used to care about, increasing the use of alcohol or drugs, behaving recklessly, sleeping too little or too much and/or acting withdrawn.

It takes a village to create a healthy atmosphere where everyone can enjoy all Yale has to offer. Life is too short to play the blame game when that energy can go towards making meaningful changes for those around us. The smallest changes in you can be lifechanging for someone else.

make a lot of race jokes. I think joking about difficult things is a way to come to terms with them. On one of my favorite television shows, 30 Rock, Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon makes a lot of quips about herself and her own whiteness. She comes from a town called White Haven, and she eats a lot of Hot Pockets. The show also makes fun of Princeton graduate Jack Donaghy (played by the effervescent Alec Baldwin) and his elitism. Jack complains that Liz is too much of a hippie-dippie, idealistic liberal.

As a biracial writer, I’m fascinated by this very direct approach to discussing race. As someone who’s often the only person of color in the room, it’s something I think about a lot.

It seems like Yale has a hard time engaging with race. I joke with other writers and artists about how a lot of writing on campus is written by white people for, well, white people.

Publications such as The Yale Literary Magazine often draw criticism for only publishing work by members of their own masthead, the majority of whom are white. While there is a lack of people submitting to the magazine who aren’t already involved,

I think it’d be great to see a more concerted effort to incorporate more diverse voices. A great deal of smaller publications have popped up recently: the Women’s Center is releasing a zine with writing exclusively by women of color, and students affiliated with the Afro-American Cultural Center recently founded the publication DOWN. But these magazines have targeted audiences. I think it’d be constructive for more established, mainstream publications such as The Lit, the News and the Herald to also showcase more diverse voices.

In the Women’s Center during a study break this evening, I brought up that I was writing this column.

One international student told me that she felt intimidated by mainstream student publications when she arrived at Yale because English wasn’t her first language, and she knows other international students who felt similarly.

Someone else mentioned that they never thought about approaching publications such as the News because she had the impression that it takes itself too seriously, and that she wouldn’t feel comfortable in such an environment. This bothered me — some of my best friends in col-

lege have worked with this paper.

I’m sad to hear that campus culture makes people feel like they aren’t good enough to share their thoughts with publications that have large readerships.

On 30 Rock, Lemon is the head writer for a fictional SNL-style comedy show produced by NBC called "The Girlie Show," which is targeted specifically at women.

The narrowness of this audience limits the influence that Lemon’s writers can wield in American culture. It’s one thing when the influence of fictional writers is restricted. But when realworld female writers, writers of color and foreign writers feel less inclined to get involved with writing for mainstream publications, this is a problem.

Yale administrators and faculty read campus publications.

They take the thoughts expressed in these pages seriously. As much as I take issue with Yale as an institution, I have also been amazed by the wealth of support and concern that the faculty take in our wellbeing. Professors read our words.

Deans and masters want to know about our lives. I think we need to do our best to make our publications welcoming to everyone, regardless of how they identify,

how much their parents make or the prestige of their high school.

I’d love to say that at Yale, we’re all smart, so we’re on all the same playing field. On paper, we all have similar access to campus activities. But when the majority of campus publication mastheads consist of white and non-underrepresented minorities, these publications are failing to adequately serve this campus. We need more writers. We need different kinds of writers from different sorts of backgrounds.

I’m glad to see publications such as Kalliope, which publishes a huge volume of submissions in each issue, and posts whatever remains unpublished on their blog. Providing Yale students with an open platform lowers the sense of intimidation. I think the News, the Herald, The Lit and others could benefit from trying to branch out. They could send out newsletters to the cultural centers, or maybe host events in neutral locations instead of their offices.

I’m just really sick of reading essays about white people in cabins.

ADRIANA MIELE is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact her at adriana.miele@yale.edu .

Imagine actually governing

BREA BAKER is a junior in Saybrook College. Contact her at brea.baker@yale.edu .

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S

o, it’s official. As of midnight on Sunday, Ted Cruz has officially announced his candidacy for president in 2016, making him the first high-profile politician to explicitly state the intention to run in this cycle. The news merited a New York Times alert, a few sardonic tweets and Facebook statuses and, of course, instant parodies and mockery of his oddly chosen rhetoric, which was vaguely reminiscent of John Lennon. More broadly, with this announcement, Cruz has officially set off the starters’ gun in earnest for the 2016 nomination — finally, instead of weeks and weeks of rampant speculation about who will or won’t run, we have a bona fide candidate to latch onto.

But although Cruz was the first official politician to announce that he would be running for president, it seems like all the news one hears these days is of the impending primaries. Every move Hillary Clinton makes is scrutinized with inches of column space; every word out of Elizabeth Warren’s mouth is analyzed with respect to how it might affect Clinton’s (unconfirmed) campaign; and honestly at this point the list of Republicans who are reportedly considering a bid for president is far longer than the list of ones who aren’t.

But beyond all the slogans, all the cheap shots ready for the taking, isn’t there something a litVICTORIA tle unnerving about potenHALLtial candidates dominatPALERM ing the media cycles a year in Notorious advance? The VHP Iowa Caucus isn’t scheduled until February 1st, 2016 — that’s 312 days from today. The very first election event is a full 10 months from this moment, let alone the general election. So what do we truly gain from starting this myopic fascination with the rat-race of presidential elections so early?

Some might say that we get more time to compare different politicians’ stances on various issues; the longer they’re in the race, the more time we have to scrutinize them. But what are we really scrutinizing with all that extra time? I woke up this morning and as I browsed through news on Ted Cruz, the first stories I found were about his ineligibility to run for office due to being born in Canada. (For the record, much

as I wish it were not so, Cruz was born an American citizen; he can run for President. Don’t let Vice convince you otherwise.)

What about the other candidates? What is this extra campaign time getting us in terms of assessing Secretary Clinton’s worth as a candidate? First of all, she hasn’t announced that she’s running for president, and so none of the truly hard-hitting policy questions have been asked of her yet. Instead, the media is making do with scrounging up stories like her State Department email usage. Yes, there’s a somewhat unsettling story there. But is it worth weeks of my time? Probably not.

So then what do we lose by spending 18 months hyping elections? Focusing exclusively on the election means we’re paying no attention to the people who are currently in office. For example, if I go to the New York Times website and click on the “politics” tab right now, the first five stories are about Ted Cruz and his merits (or lack thereof) as a candidate. The next story is about a fundraising rally being held for Jeb Bush.

Below that, however, are real stories, stories that people should read with as much avid curiosity as we read the latest salacious piece of non-news about a noncandidate. Relegated to the bot-

tom of the “politics” tab are stories about real governance: one on Wisconsin’s voter registration law; one about the charges being brought against Senator Menendez; and one, lines and lines below all of these, on talks between Israel and France about the nuclear weapons deal with Iran.

In what world are these stories playing second fiddle to this crazed and prolonged electioneering? Something seems to be thoroughly wrong with the way we watch elections unfold, almost as if they were an episode of The Bachelorette, only to promptly forget about those same individuals once they assume office.

We enjoy the sport of politics, but not the drudgery of policy; and maybe that’s why not much is getting done in Washington.

It’s because no one’s listening.

Maybe if we made a concerted effort to tune out the sensation of elections, choosing to care about the jobs that elected officials are doing, we could force politicians to get back to the business of running this country instead of running for office.

VICTORIA HALL-PALERM is a senior in Berkeley College. Her column runs on alternate Wednesdays.

Contact her at victoria.hall-palerm@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” WINSTON CHURCHILL BRITISH POLITICIAN

CORRECTION TUESDAY, MARCH 24

A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that Yale Law School deleted all of its admissions records. In fact, only the evaluative numerical scoring by Dean of Admissions Asha Rangappa and members of the faculty, as well as the identities of the individuals who gave each score, were deleted. Admissions files have never contained notes by the faculty or the Dean of Admissions.

Despite opposition, state moves to implement tolls

BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER Despite significant opposition from residents, business owners and state officials, the state’s Transportation Committee passed a bill last Wednesday that requires the state to install electronic tolls on Connecticut highways.

Since Gov. Dannel Malloy introduced his three-decade transportation goals in his budget address last month, state officials have debated ways to finance his proposal — which includes widening highways, expanding rail service and upgrading bridges across the state. The bill that passed last week requires the state’s Commissioner of Transportation to outline an implementation plan for tolls, Commissioner Jim Redeker said, and it will now move to be voted on by both the House and the Senate.

The bill passed by a margin of 18 to 13, meeting strong opposition from Republican officials and lawmakers who represent communities with large numbers of commuters, such as Fairfield, Trumbull, Stamford, Greenwich and Danbury.

“We have to stop going the easy way and grabbing into the pockets of our state’s residents and businesses,” state Rep. Laura Devlin said at the hearing. “I can’t accept an additional tax on Connecticut residents as really an easy way out of a tough problem.”

Devlin, a Republican representing Fairfield and Trumbull, is one of many who voiced their concerns against the implementation of tolls. While they recognize that the state is in need of funding for infrastructure projects, those in opposition question whether tolls are the most effective measure.

At the hearing, Devlin said that the sum of residents’ state taxes is among the highest in the country and that it would be unwise to add on to those taxes.

During a previous hearing in late February where tolls were discussed, state officials, residents and business owners sent the transportation committee over 500 testimonies in opposition to tolls.

According to Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, part of the motivation behind the tolls is to charge non-Connecticut residents who use state highways. While the state would earn revenue from private vehicles passing through

the state, Riley — who spoke out against the tolls — emphasized that commercial vehicles operating in Connecticut already pay a fuel tax, regardless of whether they are based in or out of Connecticut.

Neither Riley nor others who spoke out at the hearing suggested an alternative to tolls to fund Malloy’s transportation plan.

“I’ve been asking for years — if you have a better plan than tolls, tell me. I’m willing to listen,” said co-chairman of the Transportation Committee Tony Guerrera, who also serves as a Democratic state representative. Guerrera has been a key player in advocating for tolls.

We have to stop going the easy way and grabbing into the pockets of our state’s residents and businesses.

LAURA DEVLIN State Representative, Connecticut

The bill, if passed by the House and Senate, would require the Commissioner of Transportation to outline a program for the implementation of tolls by January 2016. It does not, however, call for the Department of Transportation to make a specific recommendation about whether or not there should be tolls, Redeker said. That means that as the bill moves forward, House and Senate officials will be voting on legislation that does not detail the locations and charge for the tolls.

At a public hearing on Feb. 25, Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management Ben Barnes said that the state had no plans to introduce highway tolls.

Despite recent developments, the OPM’s position has not changed, said Gian Carl Casa, undersecretary for legislative affairs for the OPM. “Funding [Malloy’s] longterm vision will require additional conversations on how to pay for it,” Casa said.

Tolls were abolished in Connecticut in 1986. Before then, tolls were in place on I-95, the Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways, as well as several Hartford-area bridges.

YNHHS cuts costs by $125 million

BY AMAKA UCHEGBU STAFF REPORTER Yale New Haven Health System has reduced its operating costs by $125 million dollars in just two years by reducing variations in quality of care.

Roughly four years ago, YNHHS officials decided to zero in on decreasing costs. With the introduction of the electronic medical record system, Epic, across YNHHS’s three hospitals in 2013, YNHHS was able to use targeted statistical algorithms to predict the severity of patients’ conditions and make strategic decisions based on those calculations.

Physicians and administrators interviewed were optimistic about the potential benefits of these analytical applications for patients. With a 20 percent reduction in cost per patient case, they said, they thought those benefits were being realized already.

“At Yale right now, we’re at a good equilibrium,” said Howard Forman, professor of diagnostic radiology, economics and public health, explaining that though Epic could still be improved, it has both decreased costs and improved patient care, creating a win-win situation.

The YNHHS value initiative involved bringing financial and clinical decision makers together to identify areas in a patient’s journey through the health care system that are more expensive and less beneficial than they should be. The hospital system’s plans were aided by integrating data analysis software into the Epic system, giving physicians more sophisticated data to use in decision making.

OVERLAYING DATA

According to Vice President for Performance Management and Yale-New Haven Hospital Associate Chief of Staff Thomas Balcezak, Epic has given administrators with a platform with which to apply analysis gleaned from data studies to everyday patient care questions. The program that YNHHS uses to evaluate patients during their hospital stay, allows nurses to use statistical information to guide their discussions with patients about whether care should be curative or palliative.

Balcezak added that analytics can be built into electronic medical records to advise physicians on the best treatment course in real time. Alan Kliger, professor at the School of Medicine, senior vice president of medical affairs and chief quality officer at YNHHS, offered as an example blood transfusions that occur during heart surgery. Studies have shown that too many blood transfusions can increase the likelihood of unwanted complications; the EMR now monitors how many blood transfusions doctors perform.

“Clinical practice guidelines were adapted and placed in our electronic medical record where doctors order blood and blood use was carefully monitored,” Kliger said. “Transfusions fell by 80 to 90 percent.”

Balcezak added that the EMR can also be used to recommend pre-operative antibiotic courses to prevent surgical infections. By storing trends across patient populations and over time, the EMR can advise the physician on which types of antibiotics to use and what dos-

BY THE NUMBERS YALE-NEW HAVEN HEALTH SYSTEM COST-EFFECTIVENESS $125 mil 15 27 $1.7 mil $3.3 bil

The amount of money YNHHS saved between 2012 and 2014 - this means each patient case costed 20% less.

The number of years YNHHS has been working on improving communication with Medical data The number of quality variation indicators that YNHHS measure every month.

The amount of money YNHH overpaid to Medicare in 2010 and 2011.

YNHHS total revenue in 2013.

age is needed.

According to Balcezak, the EMR’s information sharing capacities are poised to expand.

“One of our goals is to make interconnected networks of EMR,” he said. “We want all our patients on the same system, so we can share information.”

Balcezak noted that it is important for all health care providers in YNHHS to have access to the same amount of patient information, so that transitions between hospitals and treatment facilities are well managed. He said there are plans to install Electronic Intensive Care Units across YNHHS. When nurses have questions about a patient’s conditions at night, Balcezak said, it is inefficient for them to have to search for an on-call physician. But installing two-way video and audio capabilities in the ICU, with a physician monitoring patients’ conditions remotely, would increase efficiency. That physician would have access to patients’ vitals and documents and would evaluate and make recommendations about the patient’s care from their remote location.

The electronic ICU was piloted last year to ensure the concept worked. It will be rolled out to a small number of ICU beds over the coming summer, Balcezak said. He added that if it is successful, it will be rolled out to all adult ICU beds in YNHHS over the next year.

PHYSICIAN BUY-IN

YNHHS vice president of analytic strategy and financial planning Stephen Allegretto said that emphasizing how the cost-saving changes improve patient care was vital to getting physician and nurse buy-in. Physicians prefer patient-centered care — in which they craft their care plans around the patients’ wishes, Kliger said, noting that emphasizing quality of care as opposed to cost effectiveness was more convincing to him and other physicians.

The algorithms that are used to decrease YNHHS’s cost of care by $125 million were designed to recommend treatment options that have been proven to be both cost effective and high quality. Prior to implementation of the software, physicians were tasked with making trade-offs between cost and quality themselves. But now, those decisions are driven by the results of these statistics, so there is less variation in decision making across the hospital system.

“They used to say the most expensive tool in all of health care is the physician’s pen,” Balcezak said, explaining that YNHHS strategies aim to discourage physicians from ordering unnecessarily expensive interventions that have kept costs unsustainably high in the past.

He added that convincing physicians that these algorithms also make their patients’ experiences better is central to ensuring they are motivated to comply with the system’s cost-saving suggestions. Chief Medical Officer of the Yale Medical Group Ronald Vender MED ’77 agreed, adding that cost-effectiveness and high quality health care are not divergent aims.

While Forman agreed that physician altruism is an effective way to ensure buy-in to these cost-saving plans, he said that evolving economic incentive structures are also encouraging physicians to emphasize value of care over volume of care.

Historically, physicians have been paid on a fee-for-service basis that rewards physicians who perform as many medical interventions as possible. But hospitals are beginning to modify salary structures to reward physians in accordance with quality and not quantity metrics.

“Like other human beings, physicians respond to financial incentives,” Forman said. “If you want to change behaviors, you need to stop financial incentives being all about volume.”

According to Balcezak, the EMR also can be beneficial by simply preventing physicians from ordering duplicate scans, tests and exams. When physicians are able to view the same data and communicate with one another, the value of care for all patients in that health system increases.

Forman agreed, noting that EPpic increases uniformity in calculating how much to bill for specific interventions, something he said could also have contributed to the $125 million YNHHS has saved.

He added that a decrease in overpayments to Medicare might further decrease system costs in the future. In 2010–11, Yale-New Haven Hospital overpaid $1.7 million to Medicare.

In fiscal year 2013, YNHHS’s revenue was $3.3 billion.

Contact AMAKA UCHEGBU at amaka.uchegbu@yale.edu .

Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu .

OPINION. YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR VOICE. YOUR PAGE.

Send submissions to opinion@yaledailynews.com WA LIU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

In 2013, YNHHS began using an electrical medical records system that administrators credit with helping reduce operating costs.

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.” ALFRED HITCHCOCK AMERICAN FILMMAKER

Admissions returns to former policy: deleting evaulative data

JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

After receiving several hundred requests to view educational files, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions has reverted to a previous policy of regularly deleting evaluative admissions data.

FERPA FROM PAGE 1 simply because there was not space to store them all,” Quinlan wrote in a February memo to admissions staff. “In the electronic world, however, documents have a longer ‘shelf-life.’ Recent requests have spurred us to evaluate our protocol and make a decision to follow the previous practice of regularly deleting information.”

Students who requested their documents after Jan. 30 were recently notified of the change of policy via email. Many of these students said they received an email from the Admissions Office on March 16.

Quinlan added that prior to the events in January, Yale had only received a small number of FERPA requests over the past few years. However, he said, the Uni-

versity has seen several hundred requests since January, which is what prompted the policy change.

The Admissions Office staff had several internal discussions, and there was a strong consensus that the best course of action was to follow the previous practice of regularly deleting information, he said.

The memo sent out to admissions staff outlined three major justifications for the policy change. First, the memo stated that granting students access to evaluative comments may discourage admissions officers from making “specific” and “frank” judgments about student applications.

“Given that we have the difficult job of sorting through roughly 30,000 applications each year, the ability to write comments clearly

and openly is critical to our primary function of evaluating applications to Yale,” Quinlan wrote in the memo.

Two students interviewed who filed FERPA requests and gained access to their files before the policy change said they did not see anything troubling in their files and had mostly positive experiences. However, both students said they knew other individuals who were offended by the comments admissions officers wrote on their files.

Aaron Gertler ’16 said that while the Admissions Office’s justification for the policy change seems shaky, it is hard for students to fault them as long as the University’s actions are in the letter of the law. Gertler added that the FERPA consultations themselves likely place a burden on the Admissions

Office, since students are not sent their files in the mail but instead are required to schedule appointments to inspect the files in person.

“In situations like these I generally tend to trust the administration, because the administration has had many hundreds of these FERPA consultations — not just this year, but in past years from students who have figured out how to do it. And I’m sure there have been some rough patches for them,” Gertler said. “And I’m sure they also know a great deal about the experiences of their partner universities who have also had to do this, and somewhere in those thousands of cases, I’m sure that trouble has popped up. I would trust their justification.”

The memo also said that granting access to comments from

alumni interviewers compromises the relationship the office has with its volunteers, whose assistance is vital to the admissions process.

Additionally, it is good practice to dispose of certain documents that have already served the purpose for which they were intended in order to protect student privacy and security.

The admissions documents of current students and alumni who requested to see their records through midday on Jan. 30 were printed prior to deletion, but students who made requests after this date were sent an email alerting them of the policy change, Quinlan wrote in the memo. These students were still invited to schedule appointments to see their files, although their files will not contain evaluative comments.

“This was a hard decision to

make and one that we did not make lightly,” Quinlan told the News. “Obviously there is a very valuable piece of institutional memory that is lost with this, but we really felt like in order to maintain the best possible selection process, it was important to return to our old policy.”

Although Quinlan could not comment on the policies of other universities specifically, he said many of Yale’s peer institutions already had similar retention policies that involve removing admissions documents before students matriculate. In making this change, the University is moving more in line with the rest of the Ivy League, he said.

Stanford Associate Vice President for University Communications Lisa Lapin said that similar to Yale, Stanford had a policy of disposing of admissions officers’ notes prior to their admissions office transitioning to a digital format. Stanford has since returned to deleting its files, she said.

“We have now returned to our previous practice of not retaining admissions officer notes, but we are responding to FERPA requests with all records available at the time the request was made,” Lapin said.

Quinlan said it is too early to gauge student interest in seeing their files moving forward with the new policy, because the office has only now begun scheduling appointments with students who filed requests after Jan. 30. Any future FERPA requests will continue to be honored in compliance with the law, the memo said, but the Admissions Office will continue to delete certain documents from all student records before students matriculate, beginning this summer.

Three students interviewed who filed requests after the Jan. 30 date said they are disappointed in the policy change and do not plan on scheduling appointments to see the remainder of their file.

“FERPA has been around for a long time, so it doesn’t make sense that admissions offers are so surprised about students suddenly being able to see what they write,” Christopher Rim ’17 said. “They should have expected this.”

Contact TYLER FOGGATT at tyler.foggatt@yale.edu .

Stark presents policy proposals for campaign STARK FROM PAGE 1 in face-to-face discussions with constituents and maintains an “active” presence on campus.

In his speech, Stark presented outlines of policy proposals for his campaign. He called for the institution of restorative justice programming in New Haven public schools, the establishment of early-childhood literacy programs, the expansion of the Democracy Fund to cover aldermanic races and the divestment of municipal funds from fossil fuels.

Stark also used his speech as an opportunity to discuss his involvement with the city.

Inspired by a question in a 2013 mayoral debate, Stark named his three favorite streets in the city — Grand Avenue in Fair Haven, where he canvassed for mayoral candidate Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10 in 2013; Howe Street,

which he traversed on his way to his job at Squash Haven last summer; and Orange Street, where he knocked on doors with members of the Yale College Democrats in support of Gov. Dannel Malloy’s re-election campaign last fall.

“We want this campaign to be about having conversations — sharing with one another why we love New Haven, challenging one another to meet our responsibilities to New Haven, educating one another about the things that are happening in the Elm City,” Stark said.

Other speakers praised Stark for his involvement in the city.

Lily Sawyer-Kaplan ’17, a New Haven native who has been involved with Stark’s campaign, said Stark wasted no time in becoming an active citizen.

“From the moment that he arrived on this campus, he connected himself immediately with

the New Haven community,” Sawyer-Kaplan said, praising Stark for his “passion, spirit and experience.”

Dasia Moore ’18 echoed those sentiments. She said that, in his capacity as membership coordinator for the Dems last semester, Stark worked to promote enthusiasm about civic involvement.

Julie Greenwood — the director of Squash Haven, an organization with which Stark worked as a summer teaching fellow — also spoke at the event. She identified Stark’s affection for New Haven, belief in the potential for positive change and reliability as among his strongest characteristics.

Elicker, the mayoral candidate that Stark canvassed for in 2013, was present at the event.

Contact NOAH DAPONTESMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu .

PATRICK PEOPLES/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

So far, Fish Stark ’17 is the only candidate in the race for Ward 1 alder..

Students, especially in art school, fall victim to credit card fraud CREDIT FRAUD FROM PAGE 1 ments, with students — mostly from the School of Art — sharing stories of fraudulent charges and stolen credit card information. Following these responses, Ruggeri contacted the Yale Police Department around two weeks ago and has since then been the point person for the case.

Victims of the recent credit card fraud cases include both undergraduate and graduate students.

All nine students interviewed said they had all recently received notifications from their banks about fraudulent credit card charges made in locations across the nation, ranging from California to Pennsylvania.

Deputy University Press Secretary Karen Peart said the YPD

is currently working with the CT Financial Crimes Task Force to investigate two reports.

Another message, posted on the Facebook page Overheard At Yale

by Elle Perez GRD ’15, called for students to provide information for the investigation. Comments on this post revealed that the credit card fraud incidents spread beyond the art school into the wider Yale community.

“I posted a message on Facebook after finding out that lots of School of Art students had also experienced credit card fraud,” Ruggeri said. “I think that some stores we all go to may be responsible for this.”

Ruggeri, who has had her debit card information stolen three times since she arrived at Yale this past fall, said she initially wanted to

brainstorm which stores or restaurants around Yale may be responsible for the fraud incidents. Since there seems to be a concentration of cases in the art school population, she said that it is most likely somewhere in the school’s vicinity.

After contacting the YPD, Ruggeri has continued to aid the investigation by collecting bank statements and transactions from other victims for the detective on the case.

All the victims interviewed said their banks fully reimbursed the money they lost through the fraudulent charges and only three of the nine contacted police authorities. Many of them said they were unsure how their credit card information was stolen and opinion was split as to whether the frauds had occurred online or locally.

Keren Abreu ’15 said she recently made purchases at several local stores as well as from Amazon.com. While she is unsure how her information was stolen, she said that another Yale student who had fraudulent charges on their card from the same location she did, also made a recent purchase on Amazon.

Other students have attempted to discover the source of fraud through hearsay. Nathaniel Toppelberg ’15 said he heard the local Walgreens may have been hacked and also suggested Amazon as a possible source, given the large amount of purchases Yale students make through the website.

James Diao ’18 also said he believes that the fraud may have occurred through the internet since he frequently shops online.

But Perez, who has experienced credit card fraud twice since February, said she believes a local store is responsible for the crimes.

“I’m guessing it’s probably a business we all frequent since it seem to only be happening in this isolated group of people,” she said.

“None of my friends outside Yale seem to be having a problem, but nearly all of my friends who go to school or frequent Chapel Street between Howe and York are.”

Ruggeri also said she believes that the frauds are occurring at a local store, both from her personal experience and from her involvement with the police investigation. She said four to five places have repeatedly appeared in the victims’ transactions and she has “more than a hunch” of the store responsible for the crimes.

Several of the victims said that they were suspicious of Barracuda, a restaurant on Chapel Street, because it is a new restaurant. Four of the nine victims interviewed have said they recently visited the restaurant. Robert Pecoraro ’15, another victim of credit card fraud , expressed this suspicion, adding that the friend whom he visited the restaurant with also experienced credit card fraud recently.

A hostess at Barracuda said the restaurant’s staff was unaware of any cases of credit card fraud and had not received any complaints from customers.

In 2013,. a person was the victim of credit card fraud every two seconds in the U.S. Contact VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN THEORETICAL PHYSICIST

On third try, assisted suicide bill takes different tack

BY APARNA NATHAN STAFF REPORTER As Karen Banks wrote her testimony, there was a moment of déjà vu.

This was Banks’s third time testifying against the same bill in the short span of two years.

Known as HB 7015 in its current incarnation, the bill is making its third appearance in the Connecticut legislature in the past two years. In its past two iterations, the bill was defeated.

The bill currently being discussed in committee would permit a patient that has been diagnosed as terminally ill, with fewer than six months to live, to submit a written request to his or her physician to receive lethal medication.

Two written requests would have to be submitted, 15 days apart. Each would have to be signed by two witnesses testifying that the patient was not coerced into requesting the medication. Physicians would have to find the patient to be competent and not mentally ill.

While its support and opposition continue to come from the same sources as in the past, a public hearing last Wednesday drew more people to testify than ever before.

This year’s bill is similar to past versions, with a change in the requirements for witnesses.

In past proposals, one of the witnesses was allowed to be from the patient’s family, but the current bill mandates that neither witness be related to the patient.

“MY LIFE. MY DEATH. MY CHOICE.”

Last Wednesday’s hearing before the judiciary committee drew a visibly mixed crowd.

Throughout the audience, supporters of the bill wore green stickers that read “My Life. My Death. My Choice.” while opponents sported blue ones.

More than 200 people testified at the public hearing, sharing their experiences as patients, caregivers, medical professionals and religious and spiritual leaders.

Much of the testimony was motivated by personal encounters with illness and death. However, similar experiences also informed opposing opinions on the issue.

State Rep. Kelly Luxenberg testified in support of the bill, as she recounted her father’s painful battle against early onset Parkinson’s Disease while she was a child. Parkinson’s took away his ability to have a dignified death, she said. He ultimately drowned himself in a local reservoir.

However, Julianna Bennett’s experience caring for her grandmother in her final years convinced her that assisted suicide would be “misguided compassion.” She recalled various moments when her grandmother felt discouraged by her helplessness, and noted that in these moments, the elderly are particularly vulnerable to legislation that may allow them to take their own lives.

Compassion and Choices, one of the groups involved in the national movement pushing for assisted suicide bills, has been working locally in Connecticut to pass HB 7051.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut has also

expressed its support for the legislation as a means of defending people’s personal choices, said Patrick Gallahue, communications director for the ACLU of Connecticut. The bill was incorporated into their annual lobby day on Tuesday. Other groups that advocate for personal choices have also vocalized their support for the bill.

“This is a choice that should be available to all mentally competent adult citizens in any open, enlightened and democratic society,” said Patrick McCann, president of Harford Area Humanists.

However, Maggie Karner, a patient with glioblastoma brain cancer, dismissed the claim that assisted suicide laws actually increase patients’ choices. She added that these laws weaken the promise of care and support at the end of life for terminally ill patients.

OPPOSITION FROM THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT

The issue of choice and control over treatment has also been met with resistance from medical professionals who have spoken out against assisted suicide.

Robert Russo, president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, testified against the bill on behalf of the CSMS. He cited his concern that assisted suicide goes against the Hippocratic Oath because it allows physicians to give a “deadly drug.” National medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, have also spoken out against assisted suicide laws for the same reason.

Andre Sofair SPH ’97, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Yale and a general internist at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said the legislation is fraught with problems, from the definition of competency, which varies between doctors, to the safeguards listed in the bill.

For example, one safeguard requires doctors to refer patients to a consulting physician to confirm the diagnosis of a terminal illness. However, doctors will tend to refer patients to doctors similar to themselves, who will likely deliver the same diagnosis because they have similar perspectives, Sofair said.

Representatives from various hospice and palliative care centers also testified in opposition to the bill, which they claim is an undesirable alternative to the personalized care that hospice offers.

“Providing dignity to individuals at the end of life comes as a result of caring for them through their illness and natural dying process,” said Laura Borrelli, hospice director at Franciscan Home Care and Hospice Care.

Banks, a former nurse, thinks that assisted suicide should not be discussed until issues in palliative care and hospice are addressed first.

The Palliative Care Advisory Council was formed out of past debate on end-of-life issues, with the goal of generating reports of its findings by Jan. 1, 2015. However, these reports have not yet been released, making it difficult to evaluate the role of palliative care at the end of life, Banks said.

“It’s premature to bring forward a bill on assisted suicide,” Banks said. “There’s a lot of work to be done, and we need to get

more information on the status of palliative care.”

Sofair also noted that many of the reasons that motivate terminally ill patients to end their lives stem from underlying issues that can be dealt with without death.

This bill would make patients see doctors as people with the ability to end patients’ lives rather than extend them, he added.

“If this law is passed in Connecticut, it will change the relationship between the physician and the patient in a dangerous way,” Sofair said.

NOT JUST A CATHOLIC ISSUE

Last week’s public hearing included testimony, mostly in opposition, from more than 10 religious representatives.

According to Michael Culhane, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference, assisted suicide bills are an affront to the Catholic Church’s moral teachings on the sanctity of life.

Many other pieces of testimony were grounded in religious beliefs.

However, Culhane does not want people to look at the issue as one unique to Catholicism.

He noted that there are dozens of groups nationwide that are institutionally opposed to assisted suicide bills.

“The proponents of this measure would have the legislators believe that this is solely a ‘Catholic’ issue,” Culhane said. “That’s just wrong.”

Stephen Mendelsohn, a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut, a group that advocates against assisted suicide, added that he is “disheartened” when the issue is portrayed as a Catholic one because he thinks that attitude disregards other groups who have their own reasons to oppose the bill.

DISABILITY OPPOSITION

The bill has also raised opposition from the disability community.

Aid-in-dying policies are discriminatory, said Cathy Ludlum, a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut. She noted that suicide prevention is in place for the general population while the terminally ill are provided suicide assistance.

“Choice does not extend to asking others to commit acts that would be considered criminal in different circumstances,” said Lisa Blumberg, a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut.

Mendelsohn noted that there are numerous problems with assisted suicide bills, including insufficient protection of the elderly. Requiring two witnesses who are unrelated to the patient does not prevent a family member from bringing two friends to witness the request, she noted.

Additionally, provisions in the bill that refer to “self-administering” the lethal medication or demonstrating “competency” are not clearly defined as applied to the disabled and those who are unable to communicate or move freely, Mendelsohn added.

In its testimony, Compassion and Choices noted that there have been no documented cases of elderly abuse in Oregon, where an assisted suicide law was passed in 1994.

But reporting does not necessarily mean regulating, said

Katrina Hedberg ’80, state health officer at the Oregon Public Health Division. By the reporting system currently in place in Oregon, the Department of Public Health only has the power to collect data and audit incorrectly completed forms. They only collect data that they feel has medical and health relevance, Hedberg said.

The data that they have collected so far paints a nuanced picture of terminally ill populations.

Only two-thirds of the patients who are prescribed lethal medication use it to end their lives.

Most of the patients have cancer and are in hospice, but are not depressed or suicidal.

Hedberg added that assisted suicide measures have not been isolated among minorities and people with low education; rather, data show that most patients are white and collegeeducated. The most common reason for using lethal medication was “loss of autonomy,” but almost forty percent of patients also considered themselves a burden on their families.

ORGANIZING THE MOVEMENT

The assisted suicide bill was first proposed in Connecticut in 2013, but was defeated in the Public Health Committee. In 2014, former state Rep. Betsy Ritter and state Sen. Edward Meyer sponsored the bill again, but it was defeated once more.

This year, the bill is taking a different path through the legislature. Ritter was not reelected to her position, so, under new sponsors, the bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, rather than the Public Health Committee.

Mendelsohn believes that the change in committee is an attempt by the bill’s proponents to present the bill to a new group of legislators, instead of having to present the same arguments to the same committee for a third time. He added that some members of the Judiciary Committee have been on the Public Health Committee in the past, and may continue to look upon the bill unfavorably.

Sofair attributed the increase in testimony to concern that the bill might pass this year.

Both sides are preparing for a legislative battle. On Tuesday, more than 100 people spoke with legislators at the state capitol as part of the ACLU of Connecticut’s Lobby Day. Compassion and Choices is also reaching out to various organizations to spread awareness of the bill, Appleton said. He added that the group currently has one to two dozen supporters in every House district.

Second Thoughts Connecticut, on the other hand, lacks the resources that Compassion and Choices has, Blumberg said. Mendelsohn agreed, adding that their challenge is explaining the bill’s risks to those who may not have thought about specific implications.

“When assisted suicide is reduced to six word slogans like ‘My Life. My Death. My Choice,’ many people support it,” Mendelsohn said.

Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .

Proposed charter school moratorium ignites debate

BY MARTHA LONGLEY STAFF REPORTER Students, parents, lawmakers and education experts spent over 12 hours discussing the state Senate’s proposed moratorium on state charter schools last Thursday during the state’s Education Committee meeting.

A rally took place the day before at Booker T. Washington Academy, opposing the proposed Connecticut Senate Bill 1096. The bill proposes a two-year moratorium on public charter school approvals beginning July 1, 2015, during which the commissioner of education will review existing charter schools and make a plan for future charter schools, which will be due on Feb. 1, 2017. A similar moratorium occurred five years ago for all state magnet schools other than those in the Hartford area, but the review still has not been released.

“It’s not really clear what they hope to gain by this two-year moratorium,” said Lizanne Cox, the director of Common Ground, a local environmentally oriented charter school. She added that while her school will not be impacted as much as charter schools that have not yet been created, Bill 1096 does have the potential to impact existing charter-review processes.

If the bill were to pass, charter schools currently in operation will need to submit annual audit reports, fiscal reports and background checks.

According to Jeffrey Villar, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education Reform, the bill was proposed in response to the mismanagement of funds and allegedly falsified certifications at one Hartford charter school that is currently under investigation. He added that this investigation has sparked a larger debate over the expansion of charter schools in Connecticut.

“If the idea behind a moratorium is to do a better job of making sure that the charter schools already in place are effective, then I see the merit in that general approach,” said Elizabeth Carroll, director of the Education Studies program at Yale. “I think that there are legitimate concerns that public school districts [and] teachers have about the ways in which charter schools undermine the ability of traditional public schools to be most effective.”

Villar said some criticisms are that charter schools draw

highest performing students away from the public school systems and also get more funding than other public schools.

Still, Villar said those concerns are tied to the underfunding of Connecticut overall, which applies to schools of all types.

Villar also noted that a further criticism of charter schools is that they do not require all teachers to be certified. He attributed this to charter schools’ goal of promoting innovation beyond the constraints of normal public high schools.

He said it is necessary for all schools, including charters, to be held to high standards of transparency and fiscal responsibility. But, he said he does not believe that a moratorium, which would affect students currently on waiting lists for charter schools, is the solution to that problem.

“A moratorium would punish children for the actions of adults; that doesn’t make sense, we have successful charter schools,” Villar said.

A moratorium would punish children for the actions of adults; that doesn’t make sense.

JEFFREY VILLAR Executive director of the Connecticut Council for Education At the meeting, one example of a successful charter school noted in the testimonies was Achievement First, a network of public charter schools in New York and Connecticut. Dacia Toll, the CEO of Achievement First, pointed to the fact that at Amistad High School in New Haven, which is ranked first in the state for African-American achievement and fourth in the state overall, 83 percent of its students qualify for reduced cost or free lunch.

“Connecticut still has the largest achievement gap in the country in many grades and subjects” Toll said in her testimony. “Eighty-six percent of Connecticut charter schools outperform their host district averages on the CMT, and 83 percent outperform their host district averages on the CAT.” Amistad High School was founded in 2006.

Contact MARTHA LONGLEY at martha.longley@yale.edu .

r e c y c l e y o u r y d n d a i l y yale institute of sacred music presents

Everything That Rises Must Converge

story by Flannery O’Connor created for the stage by Karin Coonrod Performed by Compagnia de’Colombari Wednesday, March 25 · 7:30 pm SSS Auditorium 1 Prospect St., New Haven

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

yale institute of sacred music presents

BEYOND THE VEIL

Negotiating Boundaries in Sacred Music, Worship, and the Arts PRAISE & WORSHIP Q TRIBAL RITUALS Q ORTHODOXY Q BEETHOVEN

1:30–5 PM Q STERLING MEMORIAL LIBRARY AUDITORIUM 128 WALL ST., NEW HAVEN Free; no tickets or reservations required. ism.yale.edu

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.” CHRISTOPHER MORLEY AMERICAN JOURNALIST

Spanish Department under investigation after letter SPANISH DEPT. FROM PAGE 1 Spanish Department Chair Rolena Adorno did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including five emails, four phone calls and two visits to her office.

HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS

The letter alleged that the department is rife with sexual harassment, targeting both department secretaries and graduate students. Specifically, the letter identified Spanish professor Roberto González Echevarría GRD ’70 as the “main assailant.”

“Our current secretaries, Susan Wheeler and Virginia Gutiérrez, endure the yells and condescending remarks of Professor González Echevarría on a regular basis. From demands that they make fresh coffee to yelling at them from behind his desk partway down the hall, his actions are some of the most misogynistic that anyone has ever heard,” the letter said. “His offhanded comments to female graduate students have not gone unnoticed either.”

González Echevarría did not return multiple requests for comment.

Other professors in the department confirmed that they have also witnessed González Echevarría verbally abuse administrative assistants. Neither Gutiérrez nor Wheeler returned request for comment.

Byrne said she has heard harassing comments made by professors both to their colleagues and to students, though she declined to name any perpetrators in particular. She added that since December — when all faculty and staff received a memo asking them to report inappropriate behavior they witnessed — she has not seen any such behavior.

While largely accusing González Echevarría, the letter also cited Adorno for failing to address the issue with him.

“This is an issue that MUST be investigated further,” the letter read. “Not only does it contribute to the negative atmosphere in the department but it is an overt case of sexual harassment that has been witnessed by a large number of people in the department.”

University Spokesman Tom Conroy did not return request for comment.

A “FAÇADE OF INCLUSION”?

The letter, along with both students and faculty, identified communication problems within the department.

“The opinions of graduate students are never taken seriously by the members of the faculty of our department,” the letter read.

The letter went on to specify that student input in the form of surveys and questionnaires is not taken seriously, adding that Adorno and Director of Graduate Studies Noel Valis merely “maintain a façade of inclusion and appreciation.”

Valis declined to comment.

One graduate student who was not involved in the letter said that last year, several students completed an internal survey and brought the results to Adorno and Valis, but that few of these issues were addressed.

These concerns included some expressed in the anonymous letter, but also others such as meager availability of teaching positions for Spanish literature courses and a lack of transparency surrounding departmental policies.

“Nothing seemed to actually be done about any of the concerns — they were kind of dismissed or explained away,” the student said. “It does feel like even when we expressed our specific issues, it was more of an exercise than an actual attempt to make changes.”

Moreover, the letter alleged that communication problems within the department extend beyond student-fac-

ulty relationships and into faculty discussions as well, detailing an opposition pitting Jackson and González against Adorno and González Echevarría. This divide, the letter said, makes graduate students and junior faculty feel as if they have to take sides.

Faculty interviewed agreed that while this designation was oversimplified or exaggerated, conflict does exist within the department. González said he is not on speaking terms with several of his colleagues, but added that it would be wrong to identify the rift as “factionalism,” given that the opposing groups are not equally matched and sometimes shift.

Whatever is perceived as negative about the department can be addressed and, hopefully, remedied.

KEVIN POOLE Assistant professor of Spanish “It’s such a small department, some faculty members are marginalized from the decision-making process,” he said.

“There is this group of faculty members who essentially have been administering the department for many years and they seem to consider ... that other faculty members really shouldn’t be involved in the running of the department. It’s not a democratic set up.”

One graduate student uninvolved in the letter said everyone is aware of these issues, as professors make little attempt to hide them. However, the student added, the letter exaggerated these conflicts.

The letter also claims that Spanish professor Poole decided to leave Yale because he no longer

wishes to work in such a negative environment. Poole said this was part, but not all, of his reason for not seeking reappointment.

Several professors also identified the department’s size as a contributing factor to some problems of collegiality, along with the fact that the department has long had the same leadership.

Adorno serves as the current chair of the department, a role she has had for several years, prior to which González Echevarría filled the position. Each time Adorno has gone on leave, he has served as acting chair, professors in the department said. González said the feeling is that the two are “chairs-for-life.”

Still, Spanish professor Susan Byrne Byrne said she gets along with all her colleagues, and that department meetings are always civil.

TENURE TROUBLES

Faculty also raised issue with the department’s unwritten tenure policy, which some claimed exacerbates the divide between senior and junior faculty.

In 2007, the University implemented a tenure track system that guarantees junior faculty members an evaluation for promotion, where formerly they could only be considered when a spot opened or was created in their departments. But professors and graduate students interviewed said this policy is largely ignored in the Spanish and Portuguese department — while junior faculty are evaluated for tenure as per the requirement, they have little chance of actually receiving it.

“It is very well known around the University and even outside of the University that the Spanish and Portuguese Department does not give tenure to anyone,” Poole said.

Poole came to Yale in 2009 from Clemson University, but, now nearing the end of his sixth year, has decided not to pursue tenure, partly due to this unwritten rule.

Several graduate students and professors in the department reported that González Echevarría has publicly stated that no junior faculty member will ever get tenure in the department.

Earlier this year, Portuguese professor Paulo Moreira came up for tenure in the department.

The senior faculty in the department voted three to two against Moreira, though Poole described him as “the most tenurable person” he had ever met. All other faculty interviewed agreed about Moreira’s merits, expressing surprise that he had not been granted tenure.

Moreira’s departure will leave the department with just one Portuguese ladder faculty member.

Byrne, whose own tenure case will come up for review next year, said hearing that no junior faculty member will be granted tenure in the department is worrying, but that she is confident in her record of publications.

“I would hope that anyone who has anything to do with my tenure case will give me a fair and equitable hearing,” she said.

A MESSAGE FROM WHOM?

The letter did not list any signees, nor did it specify how many graduate students in the department supported it. Of the six graduate students who returned request for comment, none said they were involved in writing the letter. In fact, many were upset to hear that the letter was presented as a message from the graduate student body in general. In the days following the letter’s distribution, several graduate students sent emails to members of the department disassociating themselves from the letter, with some even stating that they were offended by portions of its content. According to one graduate student who spoke on the condition of anonymity, many even suspect that it was not written by a graduate student at all.

However, even graduate students not involved in the let-

ter said they agreed with many of the concerns it raised. In the past, several current and former graduate students have detailed complaints echoing those outlined in the letter.

Six non-ladder faculty in the department said they were unaware of the letter, with some adding that it was not sent to lectors or lecturers. Meanwhile, faculty who did receive the letter expressed mixed opinions on its credibility.

Four faculty members agreed that some of the letter’s concerns were valid, with some even citing additional departmental issues the letter had not included. Still, they identified aspects of the letter that detracted from its credibility, including its occasional inaccuracy, its anonymity, its lack of specificity and its poorly written text.

Byrne described many of the points in the letter as “gross exaggerations,” and some as fully inaccurate. The letter claims, for example, that Byrne is “actively seeking employment elsewhere,” which is not the case. Both Byrne and Poole emphasized that they were not at all involved in the letter’s creation, and do not support its method.

“They make points that are relevant to their position as graduate students, but they make a lot of other points that are quite separated from their experience, on which they have opinions but not necessarily a lot of information,” Portuguese Director of Undergraduate Studies David Jackson said. “Nonetheless, most of the points they bring up do deserve discussing.”

With an investigation set to take place, professors interviewed are optimistic.

“Whatever is perceived as negative about the department can be addressed and, hopefully, remedied; whatever is perceived as good can be highlighted and continued,” Poole said.

Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .

Graduate students express frustration with Yale MH&C

FINNEGAN SCHICK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Roughly 60 students attended a meeting at the Yale Law School, where mental health issues in the graduate student community were discussed..

MENTAL HEALTH FROM PAGE 1 Genecin said.

Still, students expressed frustration with the time it takes to obtain mental health counseling through Yale’s MH&C office, with some criticizing the 12-session limit that they believed was in place. Administrators said this program was merely an effort to emphasize the short-term nature of mental health treatment at

Yale, and that care was allocated based on each individual student’s needs.

While students also criticized this short-term nature of mental health care at Yale, a long-term program run through the School of Medicine was mentioned during the meeting. Run by Yale psychiatry students, the program treats roughly 60 patients at any given time over several years.

But Siggins said she did not

wish to oversell the program, as its limited size would lead to it having to turn away many students if interest increases.

“I don’t like advertising things to people that you can’t deliver,” she said.

Chris McGowan GRD ’19 said it has become increasingly difficult to find counseling spots within a reasonable timeframe.

But Genecin responded that the limited number of staff mem-

bers provide constraints to what MH&C can offer.

“There is no way to accommodate all of the demand without having some limits in place,” Genecin said. “We can’t fix the waiting time without fixing the staffing level.”

Genecin went on to say that the length of time it takes to recruit mental health professionals, as well as budgetary concerns, were the two primary challenges that

MH&C faces in their plans to increase staff. The addition of two new staff members this summer at MH&C was cited as an example of University-led progress to increase the number of available clinicians.

Hannah Raila GRD ’18, who works in the Psychology Department, suggested at the meeting that students could seek help at the Yale Center for Anxiety and Mood Disorders. The cen-

ter, which offers low-cost mental health services to all Yale-affiliated people, is staffed by graduate students and is looking for more patients, said Raila. Several students said they thought this kind of collaboration was a good idea.

Two thousand five hundred students use MH&C’s services each year.

Contact FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

NEWS

“Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.”

JAMES MCAVOY SCOTTISH ACTOR

Djibouti, Yale take on climate change

Study finds headway in NHPS performance Gonzalez also reported that while New Haven’s Tier III schools — the schools most in need of improvement — saw increases in reading and math scores on standardized tests, the city’s average scores remain below those of the state. She added that between 2010 and 2013, the city’s dropout rate between ninth and 10th grades decreased from 9 to 3 percent.

RAND also assessed students’ college preparedness and Promise Scholarship eligibility as measures of achievement. To be eligible for the scholarship, students must maintain 90 percent attendance and a GPA of over 3.0 throughout high school. Since the implementation of New Haven School Change and New Haven Promise, the percentage of NHPS graduates meeting these requirements rose from 28 to 36 percent, RAND found.

Harries said the city has reflected on the study’s results and set goals for the next five-year period, including increasing the four-year high school graduation rate from 75 to 85 percent and increasing the six-year high school graduation rate to 95 percent. He added that the city hopes to bring about an increase from 36 to 50 percent in the number of NHPS graduates continuing to second-year enrollment in college.

Gonzalez added that it is difficult to pinpoint whether the positive numbers are a result of New Haven School Change or New Haven Promise because the initiatives have been implemented concurrently.

Salovey, who serves New Haven Promise board, cited that enrollment in NHPS has risen by ten percent since the implementation of New Haven School Change and New Haven Promise. Salovey added that RAND’s findings would help New Haven continue to work towards closing the achievement gap between the students in New Haven and those in other Connecticut cities.

“We’re a lot more knowledgeable than we were six years ago,” Salovey said. “But we also needed an independent analysis to answer the question: Are these two ambitious programs achieving their goals?”

Board of Education President Carlos Torre said that the study would provide insight into what the city needs to do next for its public schools.

Harp noted that New Haven has received national recognition for its education reform initiatives.

“Call it potential; call it inherent ability. There is promise built into every child enrolled in New Haven Public Schools,” Harp said.

New Haven Public Schools serves over 21,000 students.

BY ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTER

ERIC ELLMAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

A delegation from Djibouti has arrived on campus to examine strategies for combating climate change.

BY MONICA WANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER For the first time, a delegation from Djibouti has come to campus to meet with the Yale Climate & Energy Institute as part of a joint initiative to study and model climate in East Africa.

As the preliminary step towards building what both sides called a “sustainable international partnership,” the three-day meeting brings together experts from Yale and representatives from Djibouti, including the nation’s minister of higher education and research, to develop the region’s first high-resolution climate model. The YCEI-Djibouti climate project plans to rely on this model to generate effective forecasts that can be used to devise solutions to the region’s environmental and economic issues.

Coordinated by Ethan Chorin ’91 and his firm Perim Associates, which provides expert services to governments and companies regarding the Middle East and Africa, the involved parties claimed this project is part of Djibouti’s larger aspirations to become a regional leader in environmental resilience as well as Yale’s goals of greater involvement in Africa.

“The plan is to do high-resolution climate modeling for the future [in Djibouti], which will come with a projection of 100 years from now,” said Mark Pagani, director of the YCEI and professor of geology and geophysics. “The data gathered can then be used to run forestry, agricultural, and economic models as well as to understand epidemiology, showing future impacts of the climate on the behavior of the area.”

Pagani added that the concept of a high-resolution climate model, which is focused on region-specific predictions, has already been discussed

and developed for the Northeast region of the United States, although this is the first time that a similar project will be launched in East Africa.

Pagani also commented that the project comes with important political implications.

“Recently, in the last couple of months, there have been published accounts of relationships between drought and the conflict in Syria,” he said.

Nabil Mohamed Ahmed, Djibouti’s minister of higher education and research, stressed the importance of the YCEI partnership to the country’s development. He added that Djibouti has ambitious plans to alleviate problems like drought and poverty, to emphasize the country’s environmental conditions in addition to its national security, and to emerge as a leader in East Africa through promoting projects and partnerships like this one.

We would like to … build a win-win project through partnerships with wellknown universities like Yale.

NABIL MOHAMED AHMED Minister of Higher Education and Research of Djibouti “What we would like to do is to build a win-win project through partnerships with wellknown universities like Yale and to collect data through models that will help Djibouti reduce the effects of climate change,” Mohamed said. “Djibouti is a very small country, so we can try everything. There are currently many new projects underway.

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small and scale fast.”

Chorin echoed Mohamed’s confidence in the long-term benefits of this partnership.

As a francophone country surrounded mostly by English speakers, Djibouti intends to strengthen its position through collaborations with American institutions, Chorin explained.

He added that fruitful outcomes from Djibouti’s planning could bring significant benefits to its neighboring countries.

“My perspective on Djibouti is that things can be done there relatively quickly and effectively because of its size and its visionary leadership. Situated in a fragile and strategically important region, their success can make a big difference,” Chorin said. “All the pieces seem to fit together right now.”

And considering University President Peter Salovey’s expressed interest in expanding Yale’s influence in Africa during his 2013 inaugural address, members of the Yale team are excited about this opportunity, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies professor Marian Chertow said.

In the address, Salovey drew attention to effort on the part of Yale’s top administrators to establish partnerships with African institutions, increase student recruitment from the continent and develop research and scholarship on African issues.

The East Africa Environmental Risk and Opportunities Summit, which will be hosted in Djibouti from May 2 to May 4, will gather the scientists, the private sector, the public sector and a team from the YCEI to further discuss issues and potential solutions to environmental and economic challenges in the region.

Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu .

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Two city initiatives have successfully cut high school dropout rates, boosted test scores and raised college enrollment, according to an analysis by international think tank RAND Corporation. But still, New Haven’s public schools continue to lag behind other districts in the state in all measures of achievement.

The city hired RAND in 2011 to assess the success of New Haven School Change and New Haven Promise, two city initiatives to improve the competitiveness of New Haven Public Schools. Several city officials and board members of both New Haven School Change and New Haven Promise — including Mayor Toni Harp and University President Peter Salovey — gathered at the Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School on Tuesday morning to hear RAND present its findings. The study revealed that while the city’s schools have made progress in the five key areas of school learning climate, reading and math test scores, dropout rates, college preparedness and college enrollment rates, the district’s numbers continue to fall below the state’s averages in each of these areas.

“We have a huge amount to be proud of, and we have a huge amount more to work on,” NHPS Superintendent Garth Harries ’95 said. “The wider community needs to continue to come together and continue to recognize the education of our children as the most important community challenge.”

New Haven School Change, started in 2009, is the collaborative effort of the mayor’s office, Yale, the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven and the city teachers’ union to improve test scores and college preparedness among NHPS students. New Haven Promise, which began in 2010, is an organization that focuses on guiding NHPS students through college and offers $10,000 per year towards college tuition to Promise Scholars — high-performing public school students who choose to attend in-state colleges.

In 2011, RAND gathered baseline data from 2010 and studied the progress of NHPS over time as well as the progress of the city’s schools in comparison with 40 similar districts in Connecticut. On Tuesday, Gabriella Gonzalez, a representative from RAND, presented the study’s results from 2010 to 2013.

While students’ and parents’ ratings of school climate ranged from 3.4 to 4.2 out of five on RAND’s survey, Gonzalez said RAND researchers found that many NHPS parents feel disengaged with their children’s education.

According to Harries, NHPS has introduced more parent-teacher nights to engage parents in their children’s education since RAND’s findings in 2013.

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Contact ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

“A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.”

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT

Potential Union Station developments discussed

JIAO ZHANG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Potential changes to Union Station include moving the taxi drop-off area to the back of the station, setting up bike racks or renovating to allow new businesses to be set up.

BY CAROLINE HART STAFF REPORTER Architects, engineers and officials from PARK New Haven met last week at Union Station to discuss potential plans to redesign the station and its surrounding area to minimize traffic and maximize accessibility to downtown.

The Friday meeting came in response to a 2013 study conducted by the city that found issues in traffic flow at the front of Union Station, according to PARK New Haven Executive Director David Panagore, who planned the meeting. The ideas outlined in the meeting will not see an immediate course of action, but Panagore added that changes could come at any point

in three to five years, while noting that he does not expect immediate mobilization.

“This is a [vision], made to generate commentary,” he said.

“We want to get people talking, because the only way we can get something to happen is to generate conversation.”

Pursuing the general goal of improving traffic flow both in the station and on Union Avenue, those present at the meeting suggested reconfiguring the existing facilities. Moving the taxi dropoff area to the back of the station, while keeping buses and shuttles in the front of the station, some said, could alleviate congestion in the area.

Other options for the front of the station include setting up

new bike racks or renovations to potentially allow new businesses to be established.

Plans for the surrounding area included creating a walking path that would span Union Avenue and end across from the train station at what is currently a public housing development. Panagore said that such a path would increase on-foot accessibility from downtown New Haven to Union Station.

Panagore also said that the plans discussed at the meeting would soon be published in a booklet on display at the station in order to inform the local community about the proposed plans.

Local architect Patrick Pinnell ’71 ARC ’74 said the group also discussed how to improve foot

Youth Stat wins national support

BY MATT STONE CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A New Haven crime prevention and youth development program has caught the attention of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Selecting from a pool of 14 applicants, the NCCD chose New Haven as one of three cities to participate in its Social Innovation Fund project, Mayor Toni Harp announced last Thursday. The project is backed by the White House, which directed $800,000 to the NCCD in October 2014. The NCCD is in turn using this money to provide technical support to efforts supporting juvenile justice, child welfare and youth development in the three selected cities.

New Haven’s program, Youth Stat, met the NCCD’s criteria of demonstrating a degree of success in reforming criminal justice, juvenile justice or child welfare in a location facing high rates of racial and ethnic disparities in these systems. The program will receive up to two years of technical assistance from the NCCD as well as consideration for its Pay For Success program, which would provide additional funding from public, private and non-profit sources who commit to the program.

The program hits the “sweet spot” in addressing cities’ needs for juvenile justice and childwelfare oriented intervention in environments facing severe racial disparities, said Kathy Park, president of the NCCD. An innovative and data-

driven approach to analyzing trends in youth development, Youth Stat was launched in April 2014 to establish a support system for at-risk youth in New Haven’s most troubled school districts. The program combines the efforts of the Mayor’s Office, New Haven Public Schools and several other New Haven social programs and youth services.

“Youth Stat is a way to collaborate, to bring the leaders of New Haven together […] in order to bring an individual success plan to help people that we have identified as at-risk — and the most at-risk,” said New Haven’s Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett, adding that support from NCCD will help Youth Stat continue its goal of helping at-risk youth.

Youth Stat is a way to collaborate, to bring the readers of New Haven together ... to help people [who are] at risk.

JASON BARTLETT With parental consent and following the appropriate regulations, Youth Stat uses the attendance, grade and disciplinary records of students to identify at-risk students and to analyze the changes in the numbers of at-risk students in a given region. Once identified, these youth receive social support

from Youth Stat-affiliated programs.

The program provides these at-risk youth with employment opportunities and introduces them to after-school programs.

Additionally, Bartlett said, the program provides an individualized support structure, including mental health counseling, academic tutors and other basic needs.

“We think this [will become] the national model,” he said.

Praising its innovative qualities, City Hall spokesman Laurence Gotheer described the program as a “cross-jurisdictional clearing house to help atrisk adolescents.” He added that the declining rates in crime, high school dropout rates, suspensions and expulsions are attributable to Youth Stat.

Youth Stat uses a rigorous jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction evaluation system modeled off the New Haven Police Department’s CompStat program, introduced to the city in 2011 as a way to compare crime rates across neighborhoods.

After working with the NCCD to expand and attempt to qualify for the Pay for Success program, the next step for Youth Stat is to look into other sources of private funding to further support its youth programs, Bartlett said.

The other two programs that were selected by the NCCD are One Summer Plus in Milwaukee and Alternatives to Detention and Placement in San Diego.

Contact MATT STONE at matthew.stone@yale.edu .

traffic within the station.

“We discussed within the station how people movement can be alleviated — something like turning the waiting benches 90 degrees for more congregating space into the middle of the floor instead of the first row of benches in the immediate line of travel,” Pinnell said.

Although Panagore said he was confident that the plans would materialize down the road, architects at the meeting expressed concerns about the feasibility of parts of the plan.

For example, Catherine Johnson said relocating the housing complex for the proposed walking path could be difficult because of the support it receives from the state, while Pinnell said

that the discussion of the property, which is currently owned by a developer from Boston, Mass., is a sensitive issue.

“When you walk out of Union Station, it’s a bit of a wild west — everyone’s fighting over pieces of turf,” Panagore said.

Still, Johnson added that the renovations are an important topic that merit the city’s attention, noting that there is not currently a convenient, safe way to walk from downtown to the train station. Two out of 12 students interviewed said they choose not walk to Union Station from campus, and four noted that they would not feel safe doing so.

Pinnell also said that the renovations to the station could be a step in increasing Yalies’ appreci-

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ation of New Haven monuments and city history. A member of the Cass Gilbert Society, which honors the station’s original architect, Pinnell added that Yalies should be made aware of Gilbert’s rich architectural portfolio.

“I think it would be interesting to ratchet up people’s appreciation of Cass Gilbert to see how interesting the train station is,” Pinnell said. “This is the first continuing step in the appreciation of the University being in this city.”

Union Station is under a longterm lease with Connecticut Department of Transportation, which will expire in 2017.

Contact CAROLINE HART at caroline.hart@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

AROUND THE IVIES T H E H A R VA R D C R I M S O N

Judge dismisses divestment lawsuit

BY MARIEL KLEIN AND THEODORE DELWICHE A Massachusetts Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Harvard students against the University late last year, which urged Harvard to divest from fossil fuel companies.

“Plaintiffs have brought their advocacy, fervent and articulate and admirable as it is, to a forum that cannot grant the relief they seek,” reads the memo, signed by Superior Court Justice Paul D. Wilson.

The 11-page complaint, filed last November by seven Harvard students who call themselves the Harvard Climate Justice Coalition, claimed Harvard’s investment in fossil fuels is “a breach of [Harvard’s] fiduciary and charitable duties as a public charity and nonprofit corporation.” The plaintiffs, all members of the activist group Divest Harvard, also charged that the University is misallocating its funds by investing in “abnormally dangerous activities.”

The group plans to appeal the decision, according to Harvard Law School student Joseph “Ted” E. Hamilton, one of the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit’s dismissal, dated March 17, comes after Harvard and the State Attorney General’s office filed motions to dismiss the case and then attended a hearing on the matter last month.

Divest Harvard students

ra l l i e d to mark Global Divestm e n t D a y outside MasHARVARD sachusetts Hall on Friday, Feb. 13, after members of the student group occupied the building the night before. In a decision dated March 17, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit against the University, which seven students from Divest Harvard filed late last year, urging the University to divest from fossil fuels.

In his decision to dismiss the case, Wilson argued that the “Plaintiffs’ status as Harvard students … does not endow them with personal rights specific to them that would give them standing to charge Harvard with mismanagement of its charitable assets.”

Wilson also took issue with the plaintiffs’ argument that Harvard’s continued investment in fossil fuels contributes to the “diminishment” of the group members’ education and has “a chilling effect on academic freedom,” as the group wrote in its original complaint.

“The very existence of this lawsuit, filed by members of the Harvard community to stop Harvard from investing in fossil fuel companies, shows that Plaintiffs have failed to plead facts ‘plau-

sibly suggesting’ that Harvard’s fossil fuel investments have had ‘a chilling effect on … the willingness of faculty, students, and administrators to publicly confront climate change,’” Wilson wrote.

Wilson further cited what he saw as a lack of “limits on the subject matter and scope” of the lawsuit, which argues that climate change poses such a threat to “Future Generations” that the court must order Harvard to divest.

“If Plaintiffs can bring this lawsuit, nothing would prevent other students from seeking court orders that Harvard — or any other charitable organization — take other actions to deal with the ‘exceptional risks’ posed by whatever danger to Future Generations those other students fear above all others,” Wilson wrote. “Plaintiffs’ suggested limiting principle imposes no limits at all.”

Responding to the decision, Hamilton said he had expected the lawsuit might be dismissed because of its novelty, but he said the group still plans to appeal, a process that he expects may take months. The group will be looking to gather amici briefs from supporters during that time, he said.

“We’re all disappointed by this initial result, but we’re already working on the appeal,” Hamilton said. “We are viewing this as a longer process, and this is just a first step. We’re moving forward all together as a group.”

“First divesting ourselves of worldly goods, as St. Francis teaches,/ in order that our souls not be distracted by gain and loss.”

LOUISE GLÜCK AMERICAN POET

T H E C O L U M B I A D A I LY S P E C TAT O R

Over 450 graduate students protest

BY TEO ARMUS Over 450 graduate students sent administrators a “letter of noncompliance” earlier this month expressing their objections with Columbia’s sexual respect education requirement.

Students involved in drafting the letter said that the program — which required every Columbia undergraduate and graduate student to complete one of five participation options before March 13 in order to avoid diploma or registration holds — did not address failures in the University’s sexual assault policy and was unclear in its overall purpose.

“We’re being asked to participate in these requirements by a University administration that has not acknowledged that it’s under federal investigation, let alone apologized for the failings for which it’s under investigation,” Alix Rule, a sociology Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences who drafted the letter with other students in her department, said.

While some students who signed on did in fact complete the requirement, others cited the letter as explanation of their refusal to comply.

“Overall, it puts responsibility on the individuals, but it takes away responsibility from the institution,” Olivia Nicol, a sociology Ph.D. student in GSAS who helped draft the letter, said. “The problem is that Columbia has not recognized clearly what happened, logically publicized it, or admitted any guilt.”

But in a March 14 email response to the students, which was also sent to Spectator by a University spokesperson, Executive Vice President for University Life Suzanne Goldberg said that the

COLUMBIA

aim of the initiative is focused on prevention rather than directly addressing Columbia’s sexual assault poli-

cies.

“As you know from CourseWorks, the Initiative’s central aim is to encourage students to learn, reflect and act on the link between sexual respect and community citizenship, and it seems from your letter that you have done that,” Goldberg said in her email.

Goldberg also said that the program’s goals have been included on CourseWorks since the program was launched and referred the students to Columbia’s Sexual Respect webpage, which she noted contained information about the University’s sexual assault policy, which was updated in August 2014.

Though the program offered workshops tailored to different communities, including survivors and graduate students, as one of the five options to fulfill the requirement, graduate students expressed concern in their letter that the program did not address situations specific to graduate students in their roles as teaching assistants. TAs are considered mandatory reporters, which requires them to formally report incidents of sexual assault that they are made aware of.

“A conscientious intervention should, minimally, educate graduate students about existing formal processes,” the letter said, “rather than requiring us to participate in workshops and expressive exercises alongside the same students who confide in us as authority fig-

ures.”

Goldberg wrote in her email that all of the options were created to teach all participants about how to respond to sexual assault.

“The content of every option was designed with all students, including graduate students, in mind,” Goldberg said.

“I do not know of anyone — student or not — who has seen the ‘Who Are You?’ video and has not been prompted to think further about stepping in as a bystander,” Goldberg’s email said, in reference to a video on bystander intervention techniques used in both a bystander intervention training workshop and the program’s video option, which allowed students to view a video and answer questions to fulfill the requirement.

A graduate student and TA in the sociology department, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their position as a TA, said that they did not report an incident of sexual assault that an undergraduate student had informed them about because they were unclear about the appropriate procedure.

“I don’t think that if I had complied with the requirements I would know what I was supposed to do,” the graduate student said.

“Having heard about how the policy works, I would have felt super uncomfortable if she had to go through that because of me.”

Additionally, Rule said that it was not made clear how the administration may use the written responses as well as data on student participation in the program — which she said would be in violation of research standards established by the University’s Institutional Review Board. The standards say participants must consent to participate in research and should be informed on how their participation will be used.

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“Adversity can reveal character, and I’ve certainly seen an awful lot.”

BO RYAN WISCONSIN HEAD BASKETBALL COACH

Divers compete at NCAAs SWIMMING FROM PAGE 14 advance to the finals, as only the top 18 divers from the preliminary competition advanced. MacRae ultimately came in 13th place in the finals.

The one-meter event took place on day two and MacRae again led the team, taking eighth in the preliminaries and qualifying for the next round. But after finishing in the same spot in the finals with a score of 536.00 points, MacRae ended up just 1.10 points away from a seventhplace finish and a spot in the NCAA Finals.

“The NCAA Qualifying Meet was very competitive and intense, but at the same time, I got to catch up with old friends in the diving community that I had not seen in years,” Grinker said. “The combination of the two made me motivated to do well.”

For the male divers, James McNelis ’16 represented the Bulldogs in the one-meter dive. He placed 41st overall in a field of 49. In the three-meter

dive, he finished in 46th place and was one of seven Ivy League divers to compete in the event. Teammate Wayne Zhang ’18, a staff reporter for YTV, also qualified for both events, but did not compete in the Zone A competition as he sprained his ankle the night before the diving events.

“By the end of the season, I could really see an improvement in my diving, and the way that I was competing,” Zhang said.

The lone swimmer from the women’s team to compete in the NCAA Championships was Maddy Zimmerman ’18. Her qualification time of 52.74 in the 100-yard butterfly earned her the 36th seed at the championships. In the preliminary competition, Zimmerman tied for 36th place and failed to qualify for the finals, which took just the top 16 swimmers.

Her swim marked the final competition for any of the female swimmers and divers this season.

According to Grinker, the teams are hopeful that more athletes will qualify for the tournaments next

year, as the swimmers and divers who did qualify have become motivating factors for the rest of the teams.

The only people with events left to swim are Rob Harder ’15, Brian Hogan ’16 and Kei Hyogo ’18, with Hogan the only one to have competed in the NCAA Championships before.

Harder will be competing in the 200yard backstroke as the 26th seed, and the 200-yard freestyle as the 41st seed. Hogan — who will swim the same events he swam at last year’s Championships — will take on the 200, 1,000 and 1,650-yard freestyle swims. His highest seed ranking is in the 1,650, in which he is ranked 17th.

Hyogo, meanwhile, will compete in the 400-yard IM as well as the 500 and 1,650-yard freestyle events. He is currently in the 11th seed for the 1,650.

The men’s competitions will begin on March 26 and end on March 28 in Iowa City, Iowa.

Contact SYDNEY GLOVER at sydney.glover@yale.edu .

JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Four Yale female divers and one male diver competed last weekend at the NCAAs, but only one qualified for the finals.

Elis dominate on senior night Bulldogs begin season BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 14 that was much improved from its last game against Penn, when the Elis only shot 28 percent from the field. Compared to Yale’s previous encounter with Harvard, when the Crimson won 65–55 with only two lead changes, this game featured 10 lead exchanges, with Yale leading by 4 at the 10:19 mark of the second half. But at 6:39, the Bulldogs lost their lead and were never able to regain it.

Despite the loss to Harvard, Yale was able to bounce back and make senior night special for captain and lone senior Sarah Halejian ’15, according to guard Lena Munzer ’17, when Yale broke its three-game losing streak over the Big Green (14–14, 5–9) in the final game of the season.

“As a team, we made it a goal to end the season on a high point — playing our hardest, outworking our opponents and playing together,” Simpson said. “This goal was really important to us since everyone on the team will be returning next year, therefore ending the season with two great games will hopefully carry on to our work ethic in next year’s season.”

Against the Big Green, the Bulldogs shot 33.9 percent from the field and held Dartmouth to only 22.2 percent. Furthermore, the Bulldogs limited sophomore guard Fanni Szabo — ranked second in the Ivy League in shooting — to merely two points.

“Against Dartmouth we played incredible pressure defense and just let that flow into our offense,” guard Nyasha Sarju ’16 said.

Despite the Big Green’s 13–8 head start, the Elis took the lead at the 5:59 mark of the first half and never looked back. Completely dominating the court in the second half, Yale added 31 points while limiting Dartmouth to only 13 points on five-for-27

shooting, taking the largest lead of 27 points with 54 seconds left in the game.

The highlight of the game belonged to Simpson, who played the best game of her inaugural season with a career-high 20 points with 10-for-16 shooting and six steals. Following Simpson in shooting were Sarju and guard Whitney Wyckoff ’16, each of whom scored ten points indi-

vidually.

“We finished the season playing Yale basketball,” Sarju said.

“It was a fun way to end our season.”

Although Halejian’s final season was shortened by an injury, she will be playing professional basketball overseas after Yale.

Contact JULIA YAO at julia.yao@yale.edu .

KRISTINA KIM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale crushed the Dartmouth Big Green in their final game of the season, winning 53–28.

GOLF FROM PAGE 14

by Brigham Young University. At the end of day one, Yale was in third place but fell down to fifth by the end of the second day.

The women’s team saw strong performances from players Marika Liu ’15, who placed fifth, and Shreya Ghei ’15, who placed 14th.

“The purpose of our spring break trip is to kick start our spring season and get our games back in shape after being confined indoors all winter,” Davenport said. “Based on our scores at this tournament, I would say that it was effective.”

The 54-hole Linger Longer Invitational celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, and brought teams such as two-time defending NCAA Champion Alabama and 2012 NCAA Champion Texas to the course. Davenport said that he appreciated the team’s strong play against some of the toughest opponents in not only all of college golf, but in all of amateur golf.

Davenport said that although the team would have liked to have finished a few spots higher in the tournament, there were a lot of positives to take away from their play.

For the women’s team, their goal was to place in the top five — which they did — and make a good showing at the BYU Entrada Classic, coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said.

“We exceeded our expectations by being in third place after two rounds, which was super exciting,” Rompothong said.

“We were also able to keep our team score under 300.”

Jayshree Sarathy ’18 added that on top of playing against top-ranked West Coast teams, Yale had an extra challenge in that it had to keep pace with challenging opponents after not having practiced outside for sev-

YALE DAILY NEWS

If bad weather prevents the Yale golf course from opening, the teams will have to use indoor facilities. eral months.

Rompothong highlighted Ghei’s performance, commenting that she needed Ghei to play well this spring to make up for the absence of Sandy Wongwaiwate ’17 due to injury.

Ghei was consistent throughout the entire tournament, shooting 75–73–75. Liu was also a key player for the Elis during the Entrada Classic. She started this spring shooting under par for the first time in her college career and placing overall in a very competitive field, Rompothong said.

“I only hope we get a chance to come back out west again in the following years,” Rompothong said. “The weather in Southern

California is just perfect and it allowed for us to practice efficiently everyday and get back in golf shape.”

Members of both programs said it will be difficult to move forward with the harsh weather New Haven continues to face.

Both teams are waiting for the Yale golf course to open, and if it does not, they will have to resort to indoor facilities once again.

The next tournament for the women’s team is coming up on April 2 in New Jersey, while the men’s next contest will be on April 4 in New York.

Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu .

Bulldogs take to the seas SAILING FROM PAGE 14 their only two losses coming against Georgetown.

Kiss stated that the more experienced sailors helped lead the rest of the Elis to victory in their first competition of the spring season and that the results show promise for another successful season.

“It was great to have the returning sailors from our national championship team lead the rest of us. We have a great foundation to build on,” Kiss said. “There was some strong competition at this event that showed us our strengths and weaknesses, but overall we are in a great place.”

The next weekend, the women’s team travelled to Maryland for the Navy Women’s Interconference.

Representing the Bulldogs were skippers Morgan Kiss

’15 and Marly Isler ’16, along with crews Natalya Doris ’17 and Emily Johnson ’16. In a competition beset both by low winds on Saturday and unusually high winds on Sunday, Yale placed fourth out of 20 teams, finishing just ahead of the United States Naval Academy.

Elsewhere in Maryland at the St. Mary’s Team Race, the coed team sailed to its second win of the season.

The team, which included the same delegation from the Bob Bavier Team Race, along with Christopher Champa ’18, finished the two-day event with a 13–1 record, losing only to Boston College on Sunday.

Landy noted that the team did well in using the regattas this break to provide some of the younger members of the team with experience for higher-profile events later in the sea-

son.

“As an incredibly young team, I thought we sailed with a lot of poise at both events over spring break and avoided major errors that plague a lot of teams in the early events,” Landy said. “We did a great job getting some of the more inexperienced skippers and crews some action in the regattas, which should pay huge dividends in our performance later in the season.”

For its final stop of spring break, the women’s team headed to the St. Mary’s Inter-Conference where the Bulldogs finished second out of 18 teams. The delegation included Kiss and Doris sailing in the A division, where they finished second, and Gaumond and Casey Klinger ’18 sailing in the B division, where they finished third.

Meanwhile, two groups from the coed team competed in both the Southern New England Team Race and the Vietor Trophy. Even though the Bulldogs led the Southern New England regatta with the best record after Saturday, high winds led to the cancellation of racing on Sunday, and the Elis were not officially awarded the win.

At the Vietor Trophy, racing was again canceled on the second day, yet the teams managed to get enough racing in on Saturday for Yale to officially claim fifth place out of 20 squads.

The coed team heads to the Friis Trophy and the J/70 Invite this weekend, while the women’s team is headed to the Joseph Duplin Trophy.

Contact ALEX WALKER at alex.e.walker@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Yale women’s sailing team placed fourth at the Navy Women’s Interconference, just ahead of the hosts.

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST A chance of showers after 3pm.

Increasing clouds, with a high near 43.

TOMORROW High of 55, low of 46.

FRIDAY High of 49, low of 28.

DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU

ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 3:00 PM Noticing Women in Elite Sports: Research and Process in the Bikini Mosaics. Artist Angela Lorenz will discuss her work Victorious Secret: Elite Olympic Champions as Dancing Bikini Girls, which will be on display at the Sterling Memorial Library and the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library from the last week of March through June. Sterling Memorial Library (120 High St.), Lecture Hall.

THURSDAY, MARCH 26 1:00 PM Cancer: A Layman’s Guide to the Most Feared Word in the Language. Dr. Jeremy Kortmansky, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale Cancer Center, will discuss the basics of cancer: What makes a cell cancerous, what kinds of cancer are we most likely to deal with, cancer staging and treatment options. Sterling Memorial Library (120 High St.).

DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU

3:00 PM Editing in Final Cut Pro X. This session will cover editing sample footage, media management, importing footage, audio mixing and exporting the final product to file, DVD or BluRay disk. 149 York St.

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 1:30 PM Flextime in the Workplace at Yale. When managed well, flexible work arrangements — compressed work weeks, reduced work schedules, off-hour schedules, etc. — benefit both the department and employee. This interactive workshop will help attendees explore the issues surrounding development and implementation of flexible schedule options available at Yale. Open to Yale community only. WorkLife Program (221 Whitney Ave.) Rm. LL16.

DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU

y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit To reach us: Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Isaac Stanley-Becker at (203) 432-2418.

Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.

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CONTACT THAO DO AT thao.do@yale.edu

To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE)

FOR RELEASE MARCH 25, 2015

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis

ACROSS 1 Visits 8 Legal test, familiarly 14 Reporter’s needs 15 Punk rock surname 16 Like some watches 18 Cost-of-living fig.

19 Feed in a bag 20 “Am __ the right track?”

22 Bath floater 26 Gumbo veggie 27 Nylons, fishnets, etc.

28 Petty squabbles 29 Penny-__ 30 “I’ll have another” responder 34 Neon, or fuel for a Neon 35 Patchwork plaything 36 Public image, briefly 39 Freaked out 40 One-eighties 41 Freak out 44 Shows proof of 46 Player with a record 14 100RBI seasons 47 Running a marathon may be on it 50 ’90s “SNL” regular Meadows 51 “__ Jim” 52 Knack for snappy comebacks 53 Project suggested by the starts of 16-, 22-, 35- and 47Across 59 River through Toledo 60 Hall who won on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012 61 Linen closet stack 62 Jones with a diary DOWN 1 Cincinnati-toNashville dir.

2 Shelley’s “__ Skylark” 3 Pariahs

High Meadow B&B Guest rooms available, including for Yale commencement. www.high-meadow.com Call Nancy at 203-269-2351

3/25/15

By Carol Lachance

4 Private school student 5 Parchment user 6 Atmo- kin 7 “Ash Wednesday” poet’s monogram 8 __ by fire 9 Speed 10 Ambulance VIPs 11 Fluffy scarf 12 Golfer Sorenstam, who was among the first women to become honorary members of St Andrews golf club in February 2015 13 Comeback 17 More than sniffle 21 “One Mic” rapper 22 Carpet type 23 The last Mrs. Chaplin 24 __ renewal 25 How some wines are sorted 26 Facing: Abbr.

28 Pommes frites sprinkling 31 Nutritional stat 32 Coin for Putin 33 …cole attendee

Tuesday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU CASUAL

4

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

35 Korean soldier 36 Speaking from memory 37 Spud sprouts 38 Furtive attentiongetter 39 Saturn, for one 40 Like sketchbook paper 41 Collected dust 42 Rainbow makers 43 Big brass output 45 Formal admission

3/25/15

47 Lisa of “Enemy of the State” 48 They can be hard to fight 49 Atlanta-based health agcy.

51 Sherbet flavor 54 Repent 55 Photo __ 56 Throw too low, say 57 Merkel’s “never” 58 Captured

8 6 2 9 5 4 6 4 8 2 4 8 5 1 6 2 9 1 5 5 8 9 6 3 4 7 5 9 1

PAGE 12

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS & CULTURE Yale Rep stages epic theater

BY DAVID KURKOVSKIY STAFF REPORTER On Thursday, a play that is at once political satire, romantic comedy, musical and social critique will open at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

Written by Bertolt Brecht in 1944 and directed by resident director of the Rep and Yale School of Drama professor Liz Diamond, “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” features a kitchen servant named Grusha who takes in the abandoned baby of a despotic ruler after a military coup.

James Bundy DRA ’95, artistic director of the Rep and dean of the School of Drama, highlighted the diversity of the play’s themes as well as the timelessness of the topics it explores.

“This is one of the most important and enduring plays of the 20th century, and it is about war and love and suffering and greed and justice,” Bundy wrote in an email. “These subjects never go out of style, and the bold theatricality in which Brecht, and this company, serve them up are a feast for the eyes and ears.”

Set in the fictional land of Grusinia, the play follows the protagonist Grusha as she travels across mountains and villages in an attempt to protect the royal child, encountering a bizarre cast of characters along the way.

In line with Brecht’s epic theater style, the second half of the play shifts to a different narrative that centers on a common-workerturned-judge that is appointed to hear cases by the military in the midst of revolution.

In addition to depicting many different genres of theater, the production also includes songs that serve a narrative role and features various traditional and nontraditional instruments.

According to Diamond, the musical interludes of the play allow moments of commentary on the action of the play.

Shaunette Wilson DRA ’16, who plays the protagonist of Grusha, agreed that the songs that her character sings are important for the play’s storyline, adding that the music is part of what makes the genre of the play multifaceted.

“This is a bit of a dark-comedy with music. Perhaps a social-drama? Political-drama?

With music? I really enjoy playing all the parts. Grusha has a lot depth yet she appears quite simply,” Wilson wrote in an email.

Actors and members of the production team interviewed agreed that the play’s epic depiction of various theatrical styles makes it both a challenging work to stage and an engaging production for its audiences.

According to Jonathan Majors DRA ’16 — who plays Simon, Grusha’s fiancé who leaves Grusha to fight in a war — the play’s ability to depict a genre that encompasses many others is what makes the play a piece of epic theater. Majors added that the play could appeal to a large audience for that reason.

Diamond said that while the Rep had planned to put on the play for the past several years, recent events — such as the annexation of Crimea and the war in Syria — were part of the motivation behind including the play in the current Rep season. Diamond added that the play also features certain images that resonate with recent events in the United States, pointing in particular to the discrepancy between law and justice as revealed in the events of Ferguson last year.

“While Grusinia may be a fictional land, it’s also in some ways

CAROL ROSEGG/YALE REPERTORY THEATER

The Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” features various traditional and nontraditional instruments.. right here,” said Diamond.

While the text of the play includes references to real places such as Georgia and Azerbaijan, there is no exact modernday location in which the play is set. Diamond explained that this ambiguity allows the production to incorporate an “amalgam of failed states, tyrannical oligarchs and their trophy wives, and ref-

ugees.”

Diamond and Majors both said “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” and its unique genre is unlike any recent production at the Rep, but one that is consistent with the Rep’s mission of being a workshop for innovative theater.

Majors agreed that the sheer size of the production makes it a distinct part of the Rep’s season,

adding that the production’s creativeness accomplishes the goals that the mission statement of the Rep sets out.

“The Yale Rep is very much a place of invention and exploration and daring,” Majors said. “I think this play, and this production, represent all of those things to the n–th degree.”

Bundy agreed that the show

is a unique member of the Rep’s season, adding that the piece of epic theater differs from every other play being produced this year in Connecticut.

Performances of “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” will run through April 11.

Contact DAVID KURKOVSKIY at david.kurkovskiy@yale.edu .

Cabaret show taps into the supernatural

KEN YANAGISAWA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Director Anh Marie Le DRA ’15 said she wanted to bring an opera to the Yale Caberet that would mesh well with the Cab’s audience and atmosphere. “The Medium” fit the bill.

BY IVONA IACOB STAFF REPORTER In its upcoming show, the Yale Cabaret will incorporate the world of opera into a story about learning to cope with loss and grief.

“The Medium,” an opera

by Gian Carlo Menotti, opens tomorrow night at the Cab. The opera is set in the house of a fake spirit medium named Madame Flora, who earns a living by tricking clients into thinking that they are communicating with their dead relatives. The show’s director, Anh Marie Le DRA ’15, said the pro-

duction highlights the emotional themes in the play over the visual intrigue of the tricks that Madame Flora employs.

“We thought about adding a bunch of tricks, but we decided that ultimately they’d be distracting and maybe even be too convincing and making the séance feel really real” Le said.

“We were more interested in making it clear that the séance is mostly substantiated through desire and grief and not so much through sleight of hand.”

Le highlighted the show’s portrayal of characters that undergo the various stages of grief. She noted that the production pri-

marily emphasizes the theme of searching for answers amidst the loss of loved ones.

Set in 1920s Europe, the opera follows Madame Flora, her clients Mr. and Mrs. Gobineau, and the widow Mrs. Nolan. The Gobineaus lost their son a long time ago, while Mrs. Nolan only recently lost her daughter, which causes her a great deal of grief. A parallel story in the opera also follows the romance between Madame Flora’s daughter Monica and the mute servant boy Toby.

Le noted that her initial intention was to bring an opera to the Cab that would fit the require-

ments of the venue’s atmosphere — a piece that has a small cast and lasts for roughly one hour, as well as one that presents opera as an approachable and engaging means of artistic expression.

“The Cab audiences are so brave and adventurous and so used to seeing different things in that space every week that I think it’s the perfect audience to see this, because people come in there with very little expectations,” Le said. “Not in a bad way, but just they are willing to follow along whatever story there is, and I think that is the perfect atmosphere to have for something like this.”

Yale School of Music professor Janna Baty, who plays Madame Flora, noted that the rehearsal process was a challenging one given the intimacy and space limitations of the Cab’s stage.

Lynda Paul DRA ’17, who plays Monica, added that because of this intimacy, the actors cannot rely on elements that are present in most opera productions, such as large stages and live orchestras.

José Sabín Lestayo GRD ’18, who plays Toby, said that while his role does not contain any singing parts, he must still take his acting cues from the show’s music sequence. Music director

and pianist Jill Brunelle added that another challenge for the ensemble was the task of using a single piano to create the musical effects in the place of a more traditional full orchestra.

“We have to leave some things out,” Brunelle said. “But when I play I don’t really hear piano.

I hear the orchestra part, and hopefully that means that people who are hearing me play the piano hear something more as well.”

Performances of “The Medium” run through Saturday.

Contact IVONA IACOB at ivona.iacob@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 13

“I was raised with a huge Armenian influence, always hearing stories of Armenia, celebrating Armenian holidays.”

KIM KARDASHIAN AMERICAN SOCIALITE

Exhibition honors late School of Art professor

BY ROHAN NAIK STAFF REPORTER A new undergraduate art exhibition commemorating the late School of Art professor Robert Reed ’60 ART ’62 seeks to challenge the viewer’s conception of space using a room filled with string.

The exhibit, “I am what is around me,” derives its title from the opening line of Wallace Stevens’s poem “Theory” and explores the connection between space and subject as well as man and his ideas. Organized by Josie Massey ’15 and housed in the Ezra Stiles College art gallery, the exhibition is composed of drawings she completed under Reed’s tutelage in the “Basic Drawing” course during her freshman year. Despite creating the exhibit in memory of Reed, Massey said she does not intend for it to serve purely as an homage to him.

“I hope people come and interact with the space in a new way than they’re used to,” Massey said.

In addition to housing Massey’s drawings, the exhibition also forces viewers to navigate a web of strings that cut through the exhibit space. A note near the exhibition’s entrance stated that visitors are encouraged to write their thoughts on the artwork on post-it notes and place them in the exhibition space, which now contains dozens of notes attached to the strings.

Massey said she long had a desire to create an installation where viewers could walk over string. She noted that she focused on the concept of tension in her featured drawings and felt that string could physically embody the theme throughout the room. “[The string] makes people navigate the space in a different way,” Massey said.

Students interviewed found the layout to be one of the most intriguing aspects of the space.

Ashley Feng ’16 said she believes that the strings engage viewers, unlike much of modern art, which keeps viewers at a distance. She added that the exhibit made her consider the mentorstudent relationship in art, noting that she specifically contemplated the question of how artists are influenced by their mentors’ style while having to develop their own artistic identity.

Emma Fallone ’16 said she understood the string to be a physical metaphor of bringing people together. She added that though she did not know Reed, the exhibition gave her a better sense of his personality and teaching style.

Massey noted that in the second half of Reed’s course, students developed their own projects and created hundreds of

drawings throughout the creative process.

Known by students and faculty for his unwavering support of undergraduate art education at Yale, Reed had a reputation for being a demanding instructor, even to students with no artistic background.

Massey explained that Reed’s teaching strategy involved asking students to focus on the underlying structure and composition of objects rather than on their aesthetic qualities. School of Art Dean Robert Storr added that Reed “had a very definite idea of what people should know and how they should learn.” Massey noted that she and her class worked on cardboard building as part of the course.

“I am what is around me” will close this Friday.

Contact ROHAN NAIK at rohan.naik@yale.edu .

MICHELLE LIU/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Josie Massey ’15 organized the exhibit, which consists of pieces that she produced in “Basic Drawing,” taught by the late Robert Reed ’60 ART ’62.

Dramat show explores ethnic tensions

BY JOEY YE STAFF REPORTER

ELIZABETH MILES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

In “Ermeni,” a Turkish student named Taner is transported to an ancient city, where he uncovers a family secret that has been buried for years.

In its 2015 Spring Experimental Production, the Yale Dramatic Association will remember the centennial of the Armenian genocide with an original play that explores ethnic tensions and family secrets.

Written by Eric Sirakian ’15, “Ermeni” opens tomorrow night at the Yale Repertory Theatre. The play follows a Turkish student named Taner, who visits the home of his ArmenianAmerican girlfriend Ani and embarks on a journey through time to an ancient city. Sirakian said that while the play has its historical foundation in the Armenian genocide, its central focus is on family and personal discovery.

“I’m Armenian, so [the genocide] is an issue that resonates very powerfully for me and my family and my being,” Sirakian said. “My personal experience has informed the whole family and characters that appear in the play.”

Set in October of 1970, the play begins when Ani brings her Turkish boyfriend Taner to a family dinner. Following a dispute over ethnic history, events

suddenly escalate when Ani’s grandmother suffers a heart attack and is hospitalized. When Taner visits her in the hospital, he finds himself transported to the Turkish capital city of Diyarbakir and uncovers a family secret that has been buried for years.

Lucy Fleming ’16, managing editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine, who plays Ani in the show, said she thinks the most interesting part of staging an original student play has been the process of developing the characters for the first time ever and helping to shape them for future productions of the play. She noted that the awkward atmosphere of the “meet the family” dinner scene will be familiar to many of the audience members, adding that the performers naturally created such an environment in their first rehearsal because many of them had not met one another beforehand.

“The beautiful thing about this play is that it’s not about who was right or who is to blame; it’s about acknowledgement and eventually reconcilement,” Fleming said. “I got to see the shift in my character from the first draft of the script

in October and it was cool to trace not just who she is but who she has been.

Having written the first draft of the play in fall 2013, Sirakian said the production is from an entirely new script that he drafted during the following summer. He added that final revisions to the play were made last month after the story had been read, edited and revised by his peers.

While the script largely draws from Sirakian’s own background, cast members also read a number of articles related to the time periods and settings featured in the play, in order to properly contextualize the performance. Eve Houghton ’17, the show’s dramaturg, said all the performers watched a documentary on the Armenian genocide and also read the testimonies of Arnold Toynbee and Henry Morgenthau.

Director Noam Shapiro ’15 said the play reaches beyond the topic of the Armenian genocide to grapple with issues such as friendship and reconciliation.

Shapiro said that while working on an entirely new play allowed a range of creative freedom and imaginative space, the different settings between Armenia and

the United States, over a span of 55 years, presented the greatest challenge. “‘Ermeni’ straddles past and the present as it speaks of distant actions that still reverberate in our lives today,” Shapiro said.

“In the centenary year of the Armenian Genocide, we hope that ‘Ermeni’ will contribute to a conversation about how to reconcile two narratives — those of love and hate, friend and foe — and, perhaps, find a way to move forward.”

On its last day of performances, the show will be preceded by a panel sponsored by the Yale Dramat and the Yale Genocide Studies Program. Featuring Yale history professor Jay Winter, University of Michigan professor Fatma Gocek and Armenian-American author Meline Toumami, the panel will discuss issues related to the Armenian Genocide.

In March 2010, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to the United States after a U.S. congressional committee passed a resolution formally recognizing the events of 1915 as an act of genocide.

Contact JOEY YE at shuaijiang.ye@yale.edu .

Exhibition tackles female athlete discrimination

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER A new art installation at the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library hopes to reveal the true meaning of an ancient Roman mosaic.

“Victorious Secret: Elite Olympic Champions as Dancing Bikini Girls,” the work of visual artist Angela Lorenz, was installed in both Sterling Memorial Library and the Haas Arts Library. The project focuses on three Roman floor mosaics from around 300 A.D. that were rediscovered in Sicily in the 1950s. The mosaics, which depict several women dressed in minimal clothing, holding vari-

ous objects, were long misinterpreted to represent female dancers or musicians. For this project, Lorenz has remade the mosaics using buttons, hairpins and foam board in an effort to show that the depicted women are not musicians, but rather athletes receiving their victory prizes.

After visiting the mosaics in 1998 at the Roman villa in Piazza Armerina, Lorenz was inspired to visually convey what archeologists and scholars had long known to be true, that women athletes in the ancient world were widely recognized and celebrated.

“The important thing in this piece is that people recognize

that 2,000 years ago it was a goal for prestigious families to have their daughters competing in elite athletic competitions,” Lorenz said.

Instead of rattles and tambourines in their hands, the women are holding weights, a discus and a laurel branch — a symbol of victory. Archeological research published in 2007

by Italian archaeologist Isabella Baldini Lippolis confirms this interpretation of the mosaic.

Nonetheless, Lorenz noted, the initial interpretation of the mosaics as depicting dancers or musicians still holds in many parts of the world.

The mosaic is most commonly known as “Bikini Girls,”

which is a title Lorenz said she hopes to correct.

Evidence for female athletic competitions has been discovered through the ancient world, from Italy and Turkey to Algeria, Tunisia and Greece.

“I am an artist, not a scholar, but what I do as an artist is to circulate findings published by scholars in different fields,” Lorenz said. “I like to bring scholarly material to the people by making it visual.”

The artwork is dedicated to Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination in education programs, and comes at a time in America when there have been struggles for women athletes to play sports, get equipment, and

use facilities, Lorenz said.

Lorenz went on to cite her experience playing hockey at Brown University in the 1980s, when only the men’s team had access to the hockey rink during the day, forcing the women’s team to practice at night. Lorenz thinks the issue of discrimination against women in athletics is as prevalent today as it was 30 years ago.

The mosaic pattern that Lorenz recreated is replicated with clothing buttons and hair pins–materials that Lorenz said she consciously chose to use.

“These women athletes are famous for what they’re wearing not what their doing, so I used materials associated with cloth-

ing and ornament,” she said.

The installation is hosted by the Yale Bibliographical Press and represents roughly 25 years of collaboration between Lorenz and the University, said Acting Associate Director of the Haas Arts Library Jae Rossman.

Three of the nine mosaic panels are installed in the nave of SML, a place that Lorenz said she hopes will see a lot of student foot-traffic.

“Hopefully they’ll take a closer look,” Rossman said.

Many of Lorenz’s works and books are in the Haas Arts Library.

Contact FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu .

FINNEGAN SCHICK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

“Victorius Secret” showcases female athletes receiving their victory prizes.

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SPORTS QUICK HITS

RYAN BAMFORD FROM NEW HAVEN TO UMASS The University of Massachusetts selected Bamford, who worked in Yale Athletics from 2002 to 2011, as its new Director of Athletics. At Yale, Bamford worked most recently as Senior Associate Director of Athletics, overseeing football among other sports.

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TOM RUDDY ’18 STANDOUT ON THE FIELD In two games last week, Ruddy went 5–11 with a pair of doubles for the Yale baseball team, and the outfielder from Sparta, New Jersey was named Ivy Rookie of the Week as a result. He is the first Yale player to earn the award since David Toups ’15 in 2012.

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“I believe the last two games of the season were arguably the best we’ve played since the start of Ivy League play.”

TAMARA SIMPSON ’18 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Diving ends season at NCAAs

Basketball wraps up season

WOMEN’S SWIMMING

BY JULIA YAO STAFF REPORTER In the first weekend of spring break, the Yale women’s basketball team finished its 2014–15 season with back-to-back games against Harvard on Friday and Dartmouth. Though the Bulldogs suffered a disappointing 68–63 loss to the Crimson, they finished the season strong with an overwhelming 53–28 victory against the Big Green on senior night, landing them a fourth-place finish in the Ivy League.

BASKETBALL

JULIA HENRY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Maddy Zimmerman ’18 was the only Yale female swimmer to compete at the NCAA Championships.

BY SYDNEY GLOVER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After a stellar season in which both teams placed third in the Ivy League Championships, some of the members of the Yale men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams had one final competition in the NCAA Diving Zones and Championship Meet.

The female swimmers and both diving teams have finished competition, while the male swimmers will be competing this weekend in Iowa City.

For the women’s diving team, Olivia Grinker ’16, Lilybet MacRae ’17, Kelly Sherman ’16 and McKenna Tennant ’18 all qualified during the regular season.

MacRae dove last season in NCAA

events, placing third in the Zone A Regional competition and 34th overall in the nation.

The first day in Buffalo was dedicated to the three-meter dive. In the preliminaries, MacRae finished 11th in the pool of 54 divers, while Tennant, Sherman and Grinker failed to SEE SWIMMING PAGE 10

Top-five, top-15 finishes for golf

“I believe the last two games of the season were arguably the best we’ve played since the start of Ivy League play,” guard Tamara Simpson ’18 said.

Despite shooting 42.2 percent from the field on the first Friday of break, the Elis (13– 15, 7–7 Ivy) were not able to overcome the Crimson (14– 14, 7–7), which shot a season-high 54.9 percent. Junior forward AnnMarie Healy alone contributed her season-high 24 points and was an impressive 10-for-11 from the field. Additionally, 6’4” senior forward Temi Fagbenle, who leads the Ivy League in

KRISTINA KIM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Bulldogs fell by just five points in their penultimate contest, losing 68–63 to the Crimson. rebounds, grabbed a doubledouble with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Even against the Crimson’s

aggressive offense, Yale put up a vehement performance SEE BASKETBALL PAGE 10

Yale picks up victories over break

BY ALEX WALKER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A long and freezing winter in New Haven did not prevent the Yale coed and women’s sailing teams from reestablishing their dominance atop collegiate sailing. Both squads competed in several regattas over spring break and sailed to top finishes over other highly ranked teams, including Georgetown and St. Mary’s.

Katherine Gaumond ’15 noted that the Bulldogs were excited to get back on the water and prepare for champi-

onship events later in the season.

SAILING “The team was definitely happy with how we performed over break,” Gaumond said. “Especially after this winter, which kept the team from practicing until we traveled for our spring break trip, these early season events are really about shaking off rust from the off-season and looking for places to improve for the rest of the season as we look toward the championships.”

On March 7 and 8, the No. 1 nationally ranked coed team took on its first regatta of the season at the College of Charleston for the Bob Bavier Team Race. The Yale delegation, which consisted of skippers Graham Landy ’15, Ian Barrows ’17, Mitchell Kiss ’17 and Malcolm Lamphere ’18 and crews Charlotte Belling ’16, Meredith Megarry ’17, Clara Robertson ’17 and Gaumond, sailed to first place among a field of 10 teams. The sailors finished the regatta with a 12–2 record, SEE SAILING PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS

The men’s golf team started out in 12th place but finished in 13th at the 10th annual Linger Longer Invitational.

BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER Over spring break, both the men’s and the women’s golf teams traveled to warmer climates for their season opening tournaments.

GOLF The Yale men’s golf team began its

spring season in Eatonton, Georgia at the 54-hole Linger Longer Invitational.

In the first day of the tournament, Yale tied for 12th. In the second day, Yale moved down to 13th, with Joe Willis ’16 placing 30th and captain Will Davenport ’15 placing 40th. Meanwhile, the women’s golf team traveled to Utah to participate in the Entrada Classic hosted SEE GOLF PAGE 10

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YALE DAILY NEWS

Over break, the coed sailing team collected two first-place finishes and a fifth-place finish in three regattas.

THE NUMBER OF POINTS GUARD TAMARA SIMPSON ’18 SCORED AGAINST DARTMOUTH IN A CAREER HIGH. She shot for 62.5 percent and had six steals in the Elis’ final game of the season.