NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 123 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
RAIN STORMS
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CROSS CAMPUS
CHINESE YALIES DIVERSITY ON FOREIGN SOIL
ON SITE
IT’S TRUE, MAN
Yale considers reporting website or app for sexual misconduct
TWO YALIES NAMED TRUMAN SCHOLARS FOR SECOND YEAR
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PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
PAGE 7 UNIVERSITY
Clintons campaign in CT
Cha-Change. A new series
of $20 bills will feature abolitionist Harriet Tubman on one side and retain the image of former President Andrew Jackson on the other. Tubman will be the first African-American to ever appear on U.S. paper currency and the first woman to do so in over a century. However, disappointed citizens took to social media and criticized the decision to feature both figures on the bill simultaneously. Jackson is known for his racist legacy as president.
Noon on Monday. If you
plan to vote as a Connecticut resident in the April 26 primary, make sure to pay attention to voter registration deadlines. While the deadline to register online or by mail passed yesterday, residents can register in-person until noon on April 25. Connecticut holds a closed primary, so residents can only vote in the primary of the party with which they are officially registered. U China? The Yale-China Association has awarded two-year fellowships to eight Yale students. Among the recipients are six graduating seniors, one recent graduate and one student from the School of Public Health. Fellows will teach written and spoken English to high school and university students, while taking courses in Chinese language and culture. Students can apply for the fellowship for up to five years after graduation. Bringing it Holmes. Bria
Holmes, a graduate of Hillhouse High School who played college basketball at West Virginia University, will join the Atlanta Dream. Holmes was a first-round, 11th-overall pick in the WNBA draft, and she is the first New Haven resident to be drafted into the WBNA.
I can’t wait to fall in love with you. According College
Magazine, Yale is the No. 2 best college to fall in love. The top three spots in the magazine’s ranking were all taken by Ivy League institutions with Columbia at No. 1 and Harvard at No. 3. According to College Magazine, “No matter what stage you’re in on your romantic journey, Yale’s got you covered.”
Fast & furious. Today many
Yale students have donated their meal swipes for the annual Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project fast. The YHHAP fast raises more than $10,000 to aid New Haven’s homeless population every year.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1987 More than 200 teaching assistants gather in the Hall of Graduate Studies common room to call for higher salaries, improved working conditions and an end to pay inequities among departments. Yale teaching assistant salaries are lower than those at NYU, Brown and Berkeley. Follow along for the News’ latest.
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y
LAX FACE-OFF No. 4 Yale men’s lacrosse to face No. 6 Albany team on Saturday PAGE 12 SPORTS
Masters recommended eliminating title BY DAVID SHIMER STAFF REPORTER
tighter gun-control policies. She and the other panelists addressed the disastrous impact of gun availability on youth culture in Connecticut, a state which has been permeated by gang activity and marred by some of the nation’s most devastating acts of gun violence. Gov. Dannel Malloy and Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin ’01 LAW ’06, both pres-
As University President Peter Salovey prepares to announce several major naming decisions, the News has confirmed that the Council of Masters recommended that the title of residential college “master” be eliminated. The Council of Masters initially voted to keep the title at one of its meetings prior to November’s campus protests, according to a senior faculty member who was informed of the vote by one of the masters. But in the aftermath of the protests, the council re-voted in favor of eliminating the title, the faculty member said. Based on interviews with half a dozen masters — all of whom declined to speak on the record — it is unclear whether the decision was unanimous. Because the “master” title is included in University bylaws, its official removal is ultimately dependent upon a Yale Corporation vote. While the specific timeline of the council’s recommendation is unclear, Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway told the News in Decem-
SEE CLINTON PAGE 6
SEE MASTERS PAGE 6
AMY CHENG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 brought her campaign to Hartford to discuss gun control Thursday. BY AMY CHENG AND CAITLYN WHERRY STAFF REPORTERS Just days before the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Clinton campaign came to Connecticut, with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 speaking at a discussion on gun control in Hartford while her husband, former president Bill Clinton LAW ’73 visited the Elm City.
Hillary Clinton bridged the gap of generations at her Thursday morning event, drawing a crowd of students and policymakers alike to a roundtable on gun control that featured five panelists who have been personally affected by gun violence. Clinton, who was welcomed on stage by a crowd of more than 300 people chanting her name, dedicated the event to criticizing rampant gun violence and calling for
Elm City clergy supports property tax bill BY MICHELLE LIU STAFF REPORTER In a suit and bow tie, Elder Ron Hurt prayed alongside the 30 people seated in Deliverance Temple Church Thursday afternoon. Then, he segued into the political. “We’re here today to send a prayer up to Hartford,” he said. Hurt is one of 103 local New Haven leaders who have signed a recent letter to members of the
state General Assembly in support of S.B. 414, a bill concerning Yale’s property taxes. The letter’s signees include members of the New Haven clergy, Democratic Town Committee members and local business owners. Prior to reading the letter aloud, Hurt told the crowd Thursday that, just like local churches, Yale should pay taxes on its commercial properties. He delineated the distinction between Deliverance Temple’s
ALUMNI
Donations aside, a new era in engagement BY JON VICTOR STAFF REPORTER When the Association of Yale Alumni was founded in 1972, Yale’s alumni body looked very different than it does now: nearly all members were white and had graduated from Yale in all-male classes. This group, while not the ideal admissions haul of today, tended to give back to the University in much higher numbers than current graduates do. “There was a supposition that there were things that you did,” Acting AYA Executive Director Jenny Chavira ’89 said. “And you did them because you did them.” Today, Yale’s young alumni are more diverse than ever before, but from the point of view of the Office of Development, potentially also less engaged than ever before. Alumni participation rates in giving hit an all-time low of 33.7 percent this year after dropping 25.61 percent in the last decade — the biggest fall in the Ivy League. And this decrease has primarily been concentrated among the younger classes: In the past 10 years, there has been an 11 percent increase in the number of alumni solicited, but a 26 per-
cent decrease in participation. But donations only tell half the story of alumni engagement. In order to examine how alumni relationships with Yale have changed over time, it is necessary to consider all the ways in which alumni can engage, and how robust Yale’s alumni departments are compared with decades ago. Given a changing technological landscape and shifting attitudes of young alumni, Yale’s alumni outreach bodies have been forced to change their strategies to engage as many alumni with their alma mater as they can. “Seventy-five years ago, you just communicated a different message and the engagement was probably less complicated,” Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Joan O’Neill said. “[Now], we need to find many more diverse ways to engage [alumni] with Yale, and keep Yale relevant in their lives.”
SHIFTING FOUNDATIONS
As Yale as an institution changes, its traditional alumni engagement bodies have been forced to change too. Over the past several years, structural changes have uprooted the AYA, the priSEE ALUMNI PAGE 6
main building on 584 Congress Ave. — where it carries out its core, tax-exempt mission — and its commercial property. The church leases 592 Congress Ave. to the China Cafe next door, for example, and thus pays thousands of dollars in taxes on that property and others each year, Hurt said. “Yale should be treated the same way we are treated,” Hurt said. Yale has met the contentious
bill — which has support from Mayor Toni Harp, the Board of Alders and New Haven’s state delegation — with considerable backlash. The University argues that the bill would essentially tax the University’s academic property and revoke Yale’s taxexempt status. S.B. 414 passed the state’s finance committee this month and awaits full debate on the state senate floor this legislative session. Like many of the bill’s current
supporters, the letter’s authors said that S.B. 414 will only clarify which of the University’s properties are taxable. The community letter insists that Yale’s academic properties are tax-exempt, saying that current law governing the tax status of Yale’s commercial properties is unclear. “This ambiguity in the law makes our city’s ability to proSEE TAX BILL PAGE 4
Bedbug infestations plague dorm
DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Harkness Hall has seen six infestations of bedbugs in the last few months. BY DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY STAFF REPORTER When Luying Liu GRD ’21 noticed brown blotches on her bed sheets, she told herself not to panic. “I was doing a lot of other stuff at the time and tried to get my mind off it,” Liu said. But the blotches — dried blood from the tiny insect bites on her arms and back — kept reappearing. On March 31, Liu — who lives
on the eighth floor of Harkness Hall, a 172-bedroom dorm complex for graduate and medical students located on Cedar Street near YaleNew Haven Hospital — contacted Yale Housing and the Office of Facilities to request an inspection. It was clear where the blotches had come from: a bedbug infestation, the sixth in Harkness Hall since October. The Harkness Hall bedbug infestations, which
at the moment have subsided, have generated fierce debate within the graduate and medical student community, fueled by the activism of angry residents who insist that housing officials have badly mishandled the problem. Two weeks ago, the brewing controversy forced the Medical School Admissions Office to relocate dozens of visiting students SEE BEDBUGS PAGE 4
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “There are real social dangers in this world — this is not one of yaledailynews.com/opinion
Resist testing culture A
s we approach finals season, exams loom in all our minds. In the midst of all-nighters and late-night food runs, it is worth thinking about the role exams play in our academic lives. At Yale, the gradeinflation discussion recurs every couple of years, but invariably fizzles out. Across the United States, and indeed, much of the world, debates are raging about standardized testing in schools. But many of these conversations miss the point. The real question is not so much whether to test or what grades to give, but what and how to test. One fashionable approach in both K-12 and college education is the bite-sized “continual assessment” model. In plain English, that means weekly quizzes and multiple midterms, instead of a final exam. While this movement is well-intentioned, it can have negative side effects.
WHO EXAMINES THE EXAMINATION? To begin with, constant assessment reduces opportunities for students to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. When everything we write comes under the gaze of a grader, we are less likely to take risks which enable long-term intellectual growth. Struggling students have less time to catch up; cramming for quizzes takes precedence over the actual business of processing the relevant material. As a result, students are more stressed, but learn less. By contrast, cumulative endof-term assessments enable students to reflect on what they have learned as a whole. Students can draw connections between topics and ideas. They see the woods for the trees. Although reading and finals weeks may be stressful, students get more breathing room throughout the semester, along with the time and space to develop true mastery over the material. Be it a final paper, final project or final exam, students experience a greater sense of accomplishment. What about the importance of constant practice? Indeed, it is vital for students to get feedback about their work throughout the course of the semester. But feedback does not necessarily entail grades. Ungraded exercises can serve the same function, allowing students to explore and experiment with the material. A corollary of the shift toward shorter, regular assessments is the decline of the traditional essay. In its place are lowerorder exercises like multiplechoice questions, fill-in-theblank items, map quizzes and
identifications. Often, these modes of assessment simply test the ability of a student to regurgitate JUN YAN course mateCHUA rial, leaving little room The for indepenwallflower dent thinking. Instead of developing analytical and creative skills, students spend time trying to memorize the last line in lecture, which might appear on the exam. And to compensate for the general academic parity across students, professors often end up using curves, creating a cutthroat learning environment. In many ways, this is the underlying cause of grade inflation: It is not so much that students are being awarded excessively high grades as it is that they are not challenged in a way that yields a range of grades. This is especially true in a number of large introductory classes, where the attempt to create “objective” exams leads to exams that are objectively bad. In the light of these drawbacks, the traditional essay provides numerous advantages. Essays challenge students to reveal their “best selves,” eliciting a range of responses that can be innovative and unexpected. Students can’t simply rely on study sheets; they actually have to think about what they have learned. Most of all, essays assess the skills which a college education should aim to impart — communication, analysis and argument. This is not to say that alternative modes of assessment have no place. But instructors should be cautious when using them and must think creatively about their design. Finally, instructors should consider getting a second pair of eyes to provide feedback on student work, be it another professor in the same department or perhaps an external expert. That way, students are not merely pandering to the whims of their professor or teaching fellow, and instead receive multiple perspectives on their work. Unfortunately, none of this is likely to happen any time soon. Effecting change in the academy is difficult, and any attempt to influence teaching can be construed as an impingement on academic freedom. But a successful revolution in educational assessment would transform the Yale experience. It would improve learning and student life. As you take your final, ask yourself: Who examines the examination? JUN YAN CHUA is a sophomore in Saybrook College. His column runs on alternate Fridays. Contact him at junyan.chua@yale.edu .
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COPYRIGHT 2016 — VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 123
'JD87' ON 'NIERENBERG: MASTER OF NONE'
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T S D AV I D M I N O L I A N D A N T H O N Y T O K M A N
Tender is the night M
uch has been written in these pages about the stuff that dreams are made of: Yale’s chicken tenders. Just two months ago, former Yale College Council President Michael Herbert ’16, despite ostensibly retiring from campus politics, made a bold push for Yale Dining to reconsider its tender policy (“Yale’s favorite dish,” Feb. 24). While we do not believe this issue can be reduced to mere felicific calculus, Herbert’s argument that Yale should bring back weekly Chicken Tenders Day (CTD) is well taken. But it doesn’t go far enough. Yale Dining has an obligation to greatly expand its provision of chicken tenders. And this, without question, means serving tenders outside lunch hours and more frequently than Ohio Gov. John Kasich wins Republican primaries. What we propose is radical tenderization — serving tenders two, three, perhaps four times every week, at lunch and dinner. Contrary to what Herbert would have you believe, this moral obligation doesn’t stem solely from the pleasure principle. In fact, we believe that everyone at Yale, not only the few who hold genuine political, ethical and religious convictions, will find at least one of the following arguments convincing: First, chicken tenders are good for the (student) body. Yalies are demographically at a severe risk of becoming vegetarians or, worse, vegans. Chicken tenders remind us of our place in the food chain, but don’t come with enough bones to trigger bouts of sympathy for poultry. Facing down a slice of chicken cacciatore that looks drier than Toad’s at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday almost makes vegetarianism sound appealing — but New Year’s resolutions can always wait until after CTD. Second, chicken tenders are good for the soul. This one’s pain-
fully obvious, so we won’t bother with an explanation. Third, chicken tenders are good for the environment. Argue for fossil fuel divestment all you like, but there are far easier ways for Yale to go green. Chickens require fewer resources (and expel far less methane into the atmosphere) than their bovine counterparts. And while it might be a bit burdensome for the University to keep a herd of cattle on Old Campus, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect an institution as wellfunded, and as well-endowed, as Yale to build an industrial-sized chicken coop up by the Yale Farm or on West Campus. Fourth, chicken tenders foster community. We take for granted how close many of our friends are during these bright college years, but with nearly half of upperclassmen moving off campus, Yale must do more to combat the atomism and alienation that has come to characterize American life. Given the consistent excitement over CTD, serving tenders for dinner would be a simple yet effective way of reinvigorating local communities. Fifth, chicken tenders are anticolonial. Yale Dining is notorious for trying to flex its imaginary culinary muscle by preparing ethnic dishes with that special touch of American solipsism and a generous side of mass production. This is how we get dishes like vegan tortellini, Caribbean lasagna and potato “latkes” with the flavor and consistency of Play-Doh. This isn’t just cultural appropriation — it’s cultural mutilation. Tenders, on the other hand, are as American as the love-child of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The extensive variety of sauces allows students to dress and tailor their tenders as they please. Is the dining hall serving sesame pasta salad? Try softening the blow by coating your tenders with Sriracha and sweet sauce. Cilantro mango
chutney pork chops giving you the blues? Try a mix of barbeque sauce and honey mustard, for that Chick-fil-A imitation dressing. Yale’s sad attempts at ethnic cuisines will be around as long as its tax-exempt status, but chicken tenders can significantly ameliorate the assault on world cultures, many of which are already under the heel of the global capitalist order. Sixth, chicken tender-production experiences economies of scale. As the new colleges open and Yale continues to grow, CTD can grow with it. Yale Dining has lofty ambitions with its menus, but it fails to acknowledge the virtue in selecting dishes that can feed thousands of hungry mouths three times a day. Chicken tenders are one of few dishes that can do the job. With the MCDB Department’s imminent breakthrough of a method for growing tenders in agar medium, even larger scale production will soon be possible. Seventh, chicken tenders breed humility. Deep down, past the
leather boat shoes and the Yale Model United Nations conferences, Yalies are simple people, reminded over and over again of their moral and intellectual superiority. Tenders are a simple dish, and they — not New York Times columnist David Brooks — are perhaps our best hope for restoring the youthful innocence that Yale repeatedly beats over the head with case books from Akhil Amar’s ’80 LAW ’84 “Constitutional Law” class. This has been a year of moral reckoning for Yale. The student body has its share of disagreements, but we stand as one when it comes to the moral propriety of chicken tenders. The administration will be making many big decisions in the coming weeks; we urge it to not quit before the job is done. DAVID MINOLI is a senior in Calhoun College. Contact him at david.minoli@yale.edu . ANTHONY TOKMAN is a senior in Calhoun College. Contact him at anthony.tokman@yale.edu .
NATALIA MUNOZ/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR
GUE ST COLUMNIST FRANCO CHOMNALE Z
The shadow of the ivory tower A
s I enter the final weeks of my junior year, I have only begun to grapple with the fact that the remainder of my time at Yale is not as boundless as it once seemed. As we get closer to this next chapter of our lives, there are constant reminders of the immense privilege that has been bestowed upon us, and calls to leverage that privilege into exerting a meaningful impact upon the world. It is a pressure that I am sure most of my fellow classmates are well aware of, and one that some may have already confronted even prior to setting foot in New Haven. I imagine most of my classmates had similar experiences to mine once they were admitted to Yale — we were told how lucky we were to have been chosen by a school where the chances of admission are statistically implausible for even the most qualified of candidates, and where admissions on the whole functions as a black box. The sense of having being “chosen” is one that students often remain wedded to during their time here. Senior societies, one of Yale’s most hallowed traditions, will often tell members to take pride in the fact that they
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have been “chosen” — either genuinely or with self-deprecating humor. They remind their newest class that they were selected for being among the most visible leaders on this campus, from involvement in their friend groups, teams or student organizations. As we look forward to our lives outside of Yale, these reminders of being the “chosen ones” only intensify. Because of our Yale diplomas and the immense influence our University’s alumni have in the realms of politics, business, law and academia, we are touted as “future leaders of the world.” As such, we are not only responsible for navigating the stresses of newfound adulthood, but also responsible for helping address the issues that our generation will face. The theme of President Peter Salovey’s Baccalaureate Address last year was for students to “repair the world,” reinforcing yet again this notion that we have a duty to “fix” the problems in our communities. It is difficult to find fault with any of these sentiments. It is not just because we are graduates of Yale College that we have been endowed with this sacrosanct duty, it is the noble and mor-
In defense of the Spanish Department In “For second year, Spanish draws no grad students” (April 19), the News reported a yield of zero graduate students in the Spanish Department for the second consecutive year and attributed this result to recent accusations of abuse of power and harassment, and to a climate of “fear and intimidation” supposedly found by “[an] administrative review of the department.” This characterization is false. The phrase “fear and intimidation” comes not from any reported finding by the University’s climate review of the
ally right thing to do. One also cannot argue with the fact that many of our classmates, teammates and friends on this campus will one day become leaders in their respective fields, and achieve renown for their accomplishments. What may be slightly more problematic, however, is internalizing and even fetishizing such a message to the point that it produces an adverse effect. I have encountered students who, despite having the very best of intentions, have focused excessively on the idea that belonging to this institution impels them to become leaders. By constantly being told this message and repeating it, we create a narrative in which we live in an ivory tower, and feel the need to fix the great and insurmountable problems of the perilous world we live in. Taken too far, this can breed unintended arrogance and a patronizing sense of noblesse oblige. Among my extracurricular commitments on campus, I am a part of a student-run community service organization that seeks to serve small businesses in the greater New Haven area. Feedback from past and current city residents has been
always overwhelmingly positive, and many note the tremendous impact the organization has created on improving the local economy. One interaction I had with one of our city partners, however, left me feeling somewhat unsettled. The resident told me he had had a positive experience working with the organization, but commented, “there was something about Yale kids — they like the idea of doing good for others so much that they almost like the fact they’re playing with people’s lives.” Such a statement is worrisome. Instead of simply taking pride that we’re working to promote positive change, it seems to me that some have bought too much into the idea of becoming “future world leaders.” We have begun to take pride not only in doing good for good’s sake, but instead being one of the “chosen” few that help out those whom we look down upon from our ivory tower. Great leaders are defined by their humility — perhaps the one thing a Yale diploma cannot guarantee.
department but rather from this newspaper’s paraphrases of an anonymous letter on March 6, 2015, attacking the department. The yield of zero graduate students was the deliberate, stated goal of the authors of that anonymous letter. This newspaper has aided their campaign of negative publicity by repeating that letter’s unfounded accusations over the course of eight News articles that appeared between March 25, 2015 and April 19, 2016. There is a causal relationship between these unsubstantiated claims and the disappointing developments that
have affected our program. Those most affected are our current graduate students, whose studies and careers may suffer as their academic home is publicly and repeatedly defamed. Finally, the University has made clear that the climate review report remains confidential to the University officials who authorized it. No one in the department has had, or will have, access to that report. Any claims about the report’s contents are purely speculative.
FRANCO CHOMNALEZ is a junior in Pierson College. Contact him at francisco.chomnalez@yale.edu .
ROLENA ADORNO The author is the chair of the Spanish Department.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
NEWS
“Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy.” MO IBRAHIM CELTEL ENTREPRENEUR
CORRECTIONS FRIDAY, APRIL 15
The article “Voices from Crown Street” incorrectly stated that Thomas Berry GRD ’16 consolidated hours of interviews into a single narrative; in fact, Jonathan Wei consolidated them to write “Voices from the Long War.” THURSDAY, APRIL 21
The article “Rankine, famed poet, to join faculty” incorrectly called Rankine the chair of USC’s English department; in fact, she is a senior faculty member in the department.
CS50 begins spring training BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER The 55 students hired this spring to serve as either course assistants or undergraduate learning assistants for CS50’s second showing at Yale have spent the last three weeks learning to make s’mores and craft airplanes out of Legos, all in preparation for instructing fellow undergraduates in more complex computer science theorems next fall. Absent from these training sessions, however, is computer science professor Brian Scassellati, who served as CS50’s lead instructor last fall. Scassellati has not participated in training because he will not be teaching the course next fall. Currently, there is no instructor set to teach the class, but according to Computer Science Department chair Joan Feigenbaum, the department is “right on the brink” of choosing his replacement. Despite Scassellati’s absence, students currently being trained for their new jobs said they had positive experiences with the training. This year, 55 ULAs and CAs were hired — a near 10 percent increase in comparison to the 47 students who taught last fall. “One of the goals for spring training is to not only prepare staff members to be good instructors in the course, but also to build a culture of staff accountability and enthusiasm,” head teaching assistant Andi Peng ’18 said. All new hires had to undergo the same two training sessions in the past three weeks, each eight hours long. In addition, the new staff will also need to complete all of last semester’s problem sets “perfectly” before the start of the fall term, according to Peng. The first training session focused primarily on teaching the new staff how to interact with their students, instruct productively and provide helpful feedback, said Stephanie Hickman ’19, who will serve as a course assistant next fall. Hickman said the first section started off lighthearted. “[The idea was] if we could teach things like [s’mores and Legos] it would make it easier to teach more complex CS principles,” Hickman said. “We started with easier things in the first training, and in this second [session] we taught the more complex theories that are in the problem sets.” But the sessions did not focus only on teaching — the new staff also met with a student improvisation group to explore the connection between improvising and
being a teaching assistant, new ULA Saran Morgan ’18 said. “When you are in improv, someone proposes an idea and as the scene partner you have to say yes and add to it,” Morgan said. “In teaching, you should do that as well — accept ideas from students and just try to help them from then on. It was very much about appreciation of other people’s ideas and ways of thinking about things.” The innovative culture behind CS50 attracted a large number of students to apply for the position, Hickman said. According to course head Jason Hirschhorn, the course received a large number of applications from students with a variety of backgrounds — both CS50 students and non-CS50 students, as well as CS majors and nonmajors, applied to serve as teaching and course assistants. Hickman said the application process was “a little intimidating” given the number of students who wanted the position. In order to apply, students had to first submit an application, and those chosen then underwent an interview process during which they had to act as if they were hosting office hours, with Hirschhorn pretending to be a confused student. Now, Hirschhorn is tasked with leading the training sessions, alongside three other course heads. CS50 lead instructor at Harvard David Malan said the CS50 staff is still in the process of reviewing the results of the fall 2015 course in order to make any necessary alterations to the fall 2016 offering. But he added that some aspects of the course “worked so well” that they will become a timehonored part of the class in New Haven this fall. Whereas last year CS50 Puzzle Day was held at Harvard for both Harvard and Yale students, this fall the staff plans to host events in parallel on both campuses so more students can participate in the tradition. “Now that CS50 has an institutional memory here at the university, we expect the second year to run a lot smoother than the first, with students and staff alike both aware of what exactly the course is and what it entails,” Peng said. “Hopefully, we can continue to build on this incredible program and offer students an even better course this upcoming fall.” Over 400 undergraduate students took CS50 in its first offering last fall. Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu .
KEN YANAGISAWA/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Over 400 students took CS50 when it was first offered last fall.
Yale considers launching harassment site BY MAYA SWEEDLER AND MONICA WANG STAFF REPORTERS When results from the Association of American Universities campus survey on sexual assault and sexual misconduct were released last fall, Yale was confronted with data that showed an alarming rate of sexual misconduct on campus. Two particularly disturbing statistics indicated that only 7.1 percent of female undergraduates and 3.5 percent of male undergraduates who experienced sexual harassment reported the incident to a University program. To address these gaps in reporting sexual misconduct and other forms of discrimination and harassment, the University is considering the launch of an anonymous reporting website or app. “The AAU survey results underscored the fact that many incidents of sexual misconduct do not get reported to a University program,” University Title IX Coordinator Stephanie Spangler told the News. “There are many reasons for this reporting gap and there will likely need to be a variety of approaches to address it.” Spangler said administrators have received suggestions from across the Yale community to offer an anonymous reporting site or app, adding that her office, Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews and Title IX student advisory boards have been developing a list of potential
features for such an app or website while also reviewing and sampling those already in existence. To identify, implement and maintain clear options for reporting sexual misconduct is among her office’s highest priorities, Spangler added. Goff-Crews told the News that as part of the University’s diversity and inclusion efforts, administrators are “exploring a number of possibilities” for reporting incidents of sexual harassment and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, veteran status, sexual orientation and other protected categories. Melanie Boyd, assistant dean of student affairs and director of the office of gender and campus climate, said her office has worked to foster a “culture of reporting” by building a community with peer support and focusing on in-person connections. Nevertheless, Boyd said she has heard from students that they are also interested in online reporting options. As a result, she said she hopes the University will work with an outside vendor to develop a system that will both protect students’ anonymity and facilitate contact with the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education Center or other response staff. According to Helen Price ’18, co-founder and co-director of Unite Against Sexual Assault at Yale, several of USAY’s board members have been individually consulted on the software proposals or have been asked to test existing apps. USAY as an organization, however, has
not been approached, which Price called “disappointing.” USAY has been advocating for the introduction of an online reporting software since the organization was founded last fall, Price said. While Yale administrators did not name specific apps or companies they are working with, there are a number of outside apps that Yale students can register with independently. Though they come from outside the University, these apps can be used to file complaints with University Title IX officials. One such outside vendor is Callisto, a third-party reporting website, according to Yale College Council representative and USAY board member Sofia Braunstein ’18. Braunstein, also a staff reporter for the News, learned of Callisto after creating her own online platform for reporting sexual harassment or violence as a class project in the fall of 2015. “Oftentimes, after you’ve been assaulted, it’s really hard to talk to people about it and work through your own situation,” Braunstein said. “The way Callisto works, you’d write out your situation … you’d basically have time-stamped proof for when something happened to you.” Callisto allows for direct reporting to Title IX coordinators at a university online and establishes a repeat offenders database; however, none of the information it contains can be subpoenaed — which Braunstein called a limitation. Another outside vendor is
GRAPH SEXUAL ASSAULT AND MISCONDUCT REPORTING RATES Penetration by force FEMALE REPORTING
Penetration by incapacitation Non-consensual sexual touching by force Non-consensual sexual touching by incapacitation 10%
MALE REPORTING
20%
30%
Sample size too small to generate percentages AMY ZHENG/PRODUCTION & DESIGN STAFF
Lighthouse, a new app created by the company Vertiglo. Lighthouse is similar to Callisto in that it allows students to make accounts, create reports and submit them. Unlike Callisto, Lighthouse has a data aggregating element intended to provide real-time data to campuses — which can be a preventative measure at some universities, according to Vertiglo CEO Luke Roopra. “Wouldn’t you like to predict when an assault occurs?” Roopra said. “It’s amazing how many campuses don’t know that 92 percent of assaults occur in dorms rooms from 1 to 3 a.m., or after a football game … You could search the data for your campus and do that internally, and that’s the power of the app.” Lighthouse, Roopra argues, allows students to directly and anonymously communicate with stakeholders, such as campus police and law enforcement, circumventing reporting processes mandated by Title IX and federal Department of Education regulations. With just under one million students nationwide already signed up, Roopra predicted two-thirds of current Yale students will have Lighthouse accounts within six months. As of April 20, Lighthouse statistics indicate there are 2,940 accounts registered to individuals affiliated with Yale: 1,516 alumni, 193 graduate students and 1,231 undergraduates. Students can submit assault reports through Lighthouse to 24 campuses across the country, with Princeton being the only other Ivy League school in addition to Yale. Still, Daniel Day, assistant vice president for communications at Princeton, told the News on Wednesday that Princeton is still evaluating the Lighthouse app and did not have any further comment. The AAU survey polled nearly 800,000 students at 27 universities across the country, including every Ivy League university except Princeton. Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu and MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu .
BOE proposes larger budget BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER Education officials came before the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee Thursday evening to make their case for the Board of Education’s requested budget for fiscal year 2017. The BOE’s requested budget would increase the city’s contribution by $5 million, from $226.5 million this year to $231.5 million next year. One of its more controversial proposals is the $10.7 million allocated for the construction of a new location for the Strong School — currently situated in The Hill — on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University. That proposal is identical to the one the alders rejected when it was included in Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed budget last spring. “We believe this new building for the Strong School at SCSU serves the city’s educational interests. This is an opportunity for an exciting partnership with SCSU,” Superintendent Garth Harries ’95 said. “We believe it’s a project that meets the city’s financial and capital interests.” According to Harries, the construction of a new Strong School would benefit the city in three respects. A new school, he said, would aid educational interests by providing adequate classroom space and up-todate technology for students. And investing in a new school would end up costing the city less than keeping up the current one, he said, adding that “workforce interests” — job creation — also come into play. Harries urged alders to approve the Strong School proposal this year instead of pushing the issue to a future date. Given the precarious fiscal situation of the state of Connecti-
NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Members of the Board of Education met with the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee Thursday evening. cut, the state’s promise of tens of millions in grant funding for the school’s construction might not be available after the end of this fiscal year. Responding to a question from Hill Alder David Reyes, BOE Chief Operations Officer William Clark said the proposed Strong School would only serve students from kindergarten through fourth grade. Harries said demographic projections predict the city’s population of students in those grades will increase in future years, making the need for a new, fully modernized facility all the more pressing. Westville Alder Adam Marchand GRD ’99 noted that an argument advanced by Strong School proponents is that the school’s location on the SCSU campus would provide a “pipeline” for SCSU students to learn the skills necessary to become teachers in the New Haven system. He asked Harries whether the school system is currently holding conversations with SCSU about those possibilities. “We’d have a number of those programs, and SCSU has been a very good partner for us
in terms of providing placements in New Haven,” Harries said. “Quite frankly, there are some places in the state that would not recommend their students take a position in New Haven, but Southern has been a great partner.” For Morris Cove Alder Salvatore DeCola, the $5 million spending hikes are just another entry in a long and seemingly inexorable line of increases. In heated remarks, he excoriated BOE officials for requesting spending increases that impose burdens on the taxpayer without any identifiable results. “The taxpayers cannot handle it anymore,” DeCola said. “I have 1,400 single-family houses in my ward, and they’re telling me that they can’t handle the mill rate. Where’s the good stewardship here? … We’re basing everything on grants, and it’s going to dry up. What’s plan B? What’s plan C? My people, in my ward, cannot afford another mill increase.” DeCola criticized what he said was a lack of “outside-ofthe-box” thinking on behalf of BOE officials, noting that sources of grant funding might eventually dry up. Combined
with possible state cuts, the city could end up facing an unsustainable fiscal situation, he said. The public school system has not been without controversy over the last year, especially with regards to the district’s high rate of teacher absences. Reyes, citing a report in the New Haven Independent, asked the BOE officials about the district’s efforts to stem teacher absences. Harries, noting that education is a “tough field,” said much of the teacher absence problem results from low teacher morale, especially stemming from frustrations with poor student behavior that often begins on social media and continues in the classroom. Elected BOE member Darnell Goldson said the board has been working on developing plans to address teacher absenteeism. The New Haven Public Schools system comprises 48 separate public schools. Contact NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“It’s not a bargain if it has bedbugs.” LARA SPENCER AMERICAN TELEVISION JOURNALIST
Elm City churches stand behind S.B. 414 TAX BILL FROM PAGE 1 vide basic services dependent upon voluntary payments made by Yale that are subject to change at any time,” the letter reads. “Indeed, Yale’s ongoing opposition to the bill demonstrates the potential for such a change.” The University, which paid $4.5 million of property taxes in 2015, has given over $96 million in voluntary payments to the city since 1990. That year, New Haven used a bill similar to S.B. 414 as leverage to force Yale into making those annual payments, according to Rep. Pat Dillon MPH ’98, D-New Haven, who wrote the 1990 bill. A Thursday morning press release from Yale’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications aimed at clearing up “any misconceptions about taxation of Yale-owned real estate” described the voluntary payments as a “true social contract.” The voluntary payment, which is pegged to inflation and now stands at $8.5 million a year, is the largest of its kind from any American university to any municipal government. The release also noted that Connecticut is one of two states with a Payment in Lieu of Taxes pro-
gram, which provides municipalities with revenue to make up for nontaxable property such as Yale’s. “Most cities in the nation receive little or no direct revenue because of nontaxable academic property,” the release reads. “New Haven stands out in that it receives unusually large direct revenue for its city budget because it is the home of a nontaxable university. Municipal fiscal analysts, when rating New Haven’s financial situation, regularly cite the relationship with Yale University as a positive factor.” Other attendees at Thursday’s gathering included grassroots labor organization New Haven Rising co-founder Rev. Scott Marks and Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks. Tensions over the bill since its public emergence last month have been drawn out between local support and the University’s denouncement. Yale has released public statements, lobbied legislators and written emails to staff and alumni decrying the bill. In a Hartford Courant op-ed on April 2, Vice President for New Haven and State Affairs and Campus Development Bruce Alexan-
der ’65 claimed that lawmakers raised the bill, alongside a nowdead endowment tax bill, due to requests from Yale’s unions seeking University recognition of Yale’s graduate student union, Local 33, formerly known as the Graduate Employees and Students Organization. While Yale’s unions and New Haven lawmakers have shied away from attributing the bill to union pressure, members of Locals 33, 34 and 35 have all spoken in favor of S.B. 414. Fouryear contract negotiations between Yale and its unions began mid-March. The University maintains that it already pays taxes on all of its commercial property, meaning that any additional property taxes would be levied on academic property, according to the Thursday statement. The bill defines commercial activities as any of the following occurring on University property: rents or other payments; fees collected for admission or use of any sports or entertainment facility; fees, charges or royalties for any goods designed, produced or manufactured; and fees or charges for any services rendered to the public or any for-profit entities. Current state
law allows municipalities to tax commercial college and university property generating $6,000 or more income annually. Yale has determined that academic properties with activities that fall under these criteria of the bill would be affected, including the Yale Center for Genome Analysis, Ingalls Rink, Payne Whitney Gymnasium and possibly the “labs of any faculty member who launched a successful startup.” The University has also reached out to local groups that currently use its properties, noting that the bill may require Yale to end access to these properties for the sake of tax exemption. One such group, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, would thus no longer be able to perform in Woolsey Hall, where it has held concerts for over a century. In the public statement, OPAC noted that should the bill pass, taxes on Woolsey Hall would near $760,000 each year. OPAC said total property taxes owed by Yale under S.B. 414 would be “high,” but did not list a specific figure. The University owned property in 12 municipalities valued at about $2.5 billion on the 2011 grand list — the aggregate valu-
MICHELLE LIU/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Clergy and community leaders gathered at Deliverance Temple Church to support S.B. 414. ation of taxable property within the town — according to preliminary fiscal notes released by the state’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis April 7. If not for its tax-exempt status, Yale would have paid $65.2 million in taxes to these municipalities in fiscal year 2013, with New Haven receiving $62.8 million of that revenue. But the OFA was unable to determine how much of that payment would be from properties affected by S.B. 414. Thirtyseven members of the city’s
Democratic Town Committee representing 24 of New Haven’s wards have signed the community leaders’ letter, alongside city clergy, such as Congregation Mishkan Israel’s Rabbi Herbert Brockman, and local business owners like SeeClickFix CEO Ben Berkowitz. If passed by the state legislature, S.B. 414 would become effective Oct. 1. Contact MICHELLE LIU at michelle.liu@yale.edu .
Admins faulted for bedbug infestations BEDBUGS FROM PAGE 1 scheduled to stay in Harkness Hall for a three-day admitted students event. And late last week, in an email to building residents, Director of Graduate and Professional Student Housing George Longyear announced a revised bedbug protocol designed to prevent future infestations, after consultation with an expert in bedbug management. The new protocol calls for preemptive treatments as well as other measures designed to prevent future infestations. But the new protocol — which some residents view as confirmation that the bedbug problem was left to fester in the early months of the first semester — has done little to pacify frustrated students. In more than a dozen interviews conducted over the last two weeks, Harkness Hall residents and medical student representatives detailed a timeline of inconsistent University response and a breakdown in communication that they say exacerbated the problem and created widespread confusion. The flawed response by administrators has also raised questions about the competence of the housing and facilities team, just as the University prepares for the construction of a new graduatestudent housing complex on Elm Street. “There are systemic issues here that could end up being relevant for anybody living in on-campus housing,” Harkness Hall resident Kayla Isaacs MED ’19 said. “I believe Facilities is trying, but everything I’ve observed over the past few months suggests to me that they are in over their head.” None of the administrators involved in managing the bedbug infestations agreed to comment for this story. Building superintendent Robert Young and housing manager Beth Bishop declined to answer questions. Longyear, Medical School Associate Dean of Student Affairs Nancy Angoff MPH ’81 MED ’90, and Paul Catalano, the area manager of central campus housing, did not respond to numerous phone calls and emails requesting comment. In a statement, University spokeswoman Karen Peart said housing and facilities officials are still working to address the persistent bedbug problem. “We will continue inspecting rooms and will immediately treat areas if needed,” Peart said. “Fortunately, we are not dealing with an infestation at this time, but it is certainly unsettling, and we are keeping students updated.”
“ITCHY AND WEIRD”
The first Harkness Hall infestation was reported on the eighth floor on Oct. 2. Another two eighth-floor infestations were identified on Oct. 5 in adjacent rooms directly facing the site of the first report. “I have a distinct memory of getting into bed and feeling itchy and weird, and thinking, ‘Something is wrong with this bed,’” said
the student who reported the first infestation, who asked to remain anonymous because of the stigma attached to bedbugs. “I was ignorant. Everybody is ignorant about it until it hits them personally.” The two other residents whose rooms were infested in October declined to comment for this article. It can take months to completely eliminate an infestation of bedbugs, parasitic insects that feed on human blood and cause uncomfortable rashes. The insects, which reproduce at high speed, thrive in the cracks and crevices underneath beds and between floors and walls. The Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs, a government organization dedicated to teaching the public how to address infestations, describes bedbugs as “shy timid insects” that typically gravitate toward cluttered spaces. In early October, CT Pest, the company to which the University outsources pest-control duties, used a heating device to push the insects out of the infested rooms — a response that was in line with University protocol. No other rooms on the eighth floor were heat-treated during the first round of infestations, residents said; the protocol used at the time states that the extent of treatment in adjacent areas is generally limited to “spot pesticide application.” The pest-control inspectors performed two follow-up inspections over the next month, according to the student who reported the first infestation. On Nov. 17, they informed the affected residents that the issue had been resolved. Although that treatment strategy apparently succeeded in driving the bedbugs from the three infested rooms, it raised concerns among residents that the bedbugs would continue to spread to other parts of the floor. “They could’ve done a better preemptive job at preventing an initial spread to other rooms,” said another eighth-floor resident, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. “They could’ve treated the other rooms on that floor, if not the ones above and below as well.” Gail Ridge, a bedbug expert who worked with Yale’s housing and facilities team to devise the new protocol, said heat treatment causes the insects to flee infested rooms. But, she added, the brick walls of Harkness Hall most likely absorbed the heat waves intended to drive the bedbugs away, reducing the treatment’s efficacy. On Feb. 24, three months after the first round of infestations, a resident in the same brightly lit stretch of eighth-floor hallway reported bedbugs in her room. In an interview with the News, the student, who also asked to remain anonymous, said that over the next week she received conflicting instructions from administrators that left her embarrassed and confused. Young, who spearheaded the response to the bedbug issue, was out of town at the time of the
infestation, according to the student. “The people who initially helped us out were I don’t think as well-informed on how to respond,” said the student, who could not recall the names of the staff who inspected her room. The inspectors, she said, permitted her to return clothes and other possessions to their usual places after her room was treated. But when Young returned, the student said, he ordered the belongings to be put in protective bags, in accordance with protocol. “We initially had certain information on how to respond, and then when [Young] came into town, he gave us different information,” the student said. And in addition to providing the student with inaccurate information, the original inspectors had also transported boxes of her possessions to a new room on the 10th floor — inadvertently carrying bedbugs to a previously unaffected part of the building. Isaacs, who also lives on the eighth floor, called the decision to transport the belongings upstairs “gross incompetence” and a breach of University protocol. Ridge, who has not discussed the episode with housing administrators, said the infested possessions should not have been moved to a different floor. “It’s a learning opportunity,” Ridge said. “It’s not characteristic of their professionalism. Something happened that we don’t know about.” “That’s what I noticed at Yale,” she added. “People are not communicating and cooperating.”
A BREAKDOWN IN COMMUNICATION
On Oct. 8, the day the exterminators heat-treated the first three infestations, the housing team posted two notices next to the eighth-floor elevator announcing that the affected rooms were being treated. But some students on the eighth floor said they never saw the flyers, which were taken down shortly after the pest-control workers left the building. A week later, Isaacs sent Longyear an email asking him to keep residents better informed about the bedbug infestations. “Communication is extremely important, but we are careful not to incite unnecessary panic,” Longyear wrote in his reply, which Isaacs provided to the News. “As soon as we were made aware, the University protocol for bed bugs was put into place.” On Oct. 16, Longyear sent a buildingwide email saying the bedbug problem had been resolved. But many eighth-floor residents interviewed said they did not notice the email, which was presented in a generic newsletter-style format rather than as an urgent formal letter to residents. “You have to have communication so that everyone knows that it is an issue to be aware of,” Isaacs said. “Everyone needs to know who to contact, and that
they should contact someone right away.” She added that Longyear’s reassuring emails were “disingenuous,” as they falsely implied that the bedbug problem was entirely under control. Thais Faggion Vinholo MED ’19, an eighth-floor resident, did not notice Longyear’s emails and said she did not hear about the bedbug infestations until February, when the fourth infestation was reported. “The biggest frustration was that they didn’t tell us what was going on,” Faggion Vinholo said. “I realized that was happening only when I started to see some guys wearing some white clothes, and I was like, ‘Wait, what’s going on?’” In the wake of each new report, housing administrators sent instructions to Harkness residents on how to prevent bedbug infestations. But the emails sometimes contained sloppy errors: One early message stated that bedbugs are three inches long, rather than three millimeters. Liu, the resident who suffered the most recent infestation, said concerned students usually have to take the initiative to get detailed information from housing administrators. “Sometimes they will tell you stuff, if you ask them,” she said. “Personally, I would appreciate it if they’re more open about this.” Still, when Yale Housing held a town hall-style discussion in early March about the bedbug issue, only seven students attended, despite emails from administrators promising that a “leading expert in the area of bedbugs” would speak at the session. The visiting expert was Ridge, who also met privately with the housing and facilities team to discuss revisions to the University’s bedbug protocol, which had not been updated since 2010. After consulting with Ridge, the housing administrators changed their treatment method, switching from heat treatment to a nontoxic silica dust-based pesticide. “[The original protocol] was appropriate for the moment it was written, but things have evolved,” Ridge told the News. “Protocols should remain living documents, so that as research unfolds and experience becomes deeper in the University, those documents can be reviewed.” On March 8, the housing and facilities team used silica dust to prophylactically treat every bedroom and common space in Harkness Hall, a preventative measure designed to stop the future spread of bedbugs. But the officials announced the preemptive treatment in a dormwide email just one day before the exterminators arrived, and several residents interviewed said they missed the alert. Carolyn Chuang MED ’17 said she was surprised to enter her room and see chemicals sprayed across the floor. “I came in one day, and it had already been done,” Chuang said.
“It’d be nice if they could give us some notice.”
TO HOST OR NOT TO HOST?
Three weeks after the preemptive silica-dust treatment, Liu contacted Yale Housing to report the brown splotches on her sheets. This sixth infestation came less than a week before 30 admitted medical students were scheduled to stay at Harkness Hall for Second Look weekend, an eventladen extravaganza designed to showcase the school’s appeal. The Medical Student Council, which works alongside the admissions office to organize Second Look, lobbied Director of Admissions Richard Silverman and Assistant Director of Admissions Barbara Watts to relocate the students to a local hotel. Still, despite the new infestation, the admissions officers were initially reluctant to move the visitors off campus, according to student representatives involved in the discussions. Watts and Silverman did not respond to requests for comment. But three days before Second Look, exterminators discovered live bedbugs under a floorboard in Liu’s room, and Watts and Silverman appeared to change their minds. In a late-night email to Harkness residents two days before students were due to arrive, MSC President Carrie Flynn MED ’23 confirmed that the visiting students would stay at a local hotel at the expense of the Medical School. “Given the developing nature of this situation, [the students and admissions officers] have decided that it is best to provide our accepted students with lodging in a hotel rather than Harkness,” Flynn wrote in the email. The admitted students stayed at La Quinta Inn and Suites, about two and a half miles from the center of campus. The medical school offered free Uber rides to the visitors staying at the hotel. “It was actually nice to have our rooms cleaned and towels, toiletries and breakfast provided,” said George Bugarinovic, one of the admitted students who stayed at La Quinta. “Having a roommate caught me a bit off guard, but we became friends quickly.” Walter Hsiang, an admitted medical student who attended Second Look but did not stay at La Quinta, said the admitted students he spoke to seemed unconcerned about the bedbug infestations, although some complained that the hotel was inconveniently located.
MOVING FORWARD
In an email last week to Harkness residents, Longyear announced that the University has finalized a revised bedbug-treatment protocol. The new guidelines, which can be found on Yale Housing’s website, call for infested rooms and all adjacent spaces to be treated with silica dust. According to Ridge, the updated protocol probably would have pre-
vented the bedbugs from spreading had it been applied to the first round of infestations in the fall. “It was a problem that was not managed, either through oversight or lack of understanding,” she said. The MSC met with Longyear Monday to suggest even more additions to the bedbug protocol, including new procedures for follow-up inspections and adjustments to the application method for the silica dust-based treatment. “Mr. Longyear is going to follow up with Dr. Ridge on these questions and will adjust the protocol as needed,” Flynn wrote Thursday in an email to the medical school community. “[Longyear] has also confirmed that two fully trained, highly qualified bedbug sniffing dogs have been hired to determine if any bedbugs remain in the building.” Meanwhile, a line of bulldozers began work two weeks ago on the construction of 82 new graduatestudent dorms set to open on Elm Street in fall 2018. According to Isaacs, the bungled response to the Harkness Hall infestations should serve as impetus for more robust bedbug prevention strategies in the new housing units. But the revised treatment procedures may not be enough on their own, students said, because they have not resolved the communication issues that left some residents unsure of how to prevent infestations. The new protocol requires administrators to place bedbug interceptor traps — circular wells designed to catch the insects before they climb onto beds — under each leg of an infested bed. In his email announcing the new guidelines, Longyear said administrators have purchased the traps for any resident who wants them. But it remains unclear whether building residents are even aware that the traps are available. Isaacs said she found boxes of them stored in the Harkness Hall mailroom. Three of five eighth-floor residents interviewed said they had never even heard of bedbug traps. And many residents, even those living on the affected floors, remain misinformed about the scale of the bedbug problem. Chuang, who lives down the hall from the site of the first infestations, said she thought there had been only three reports of bedbugs since October. She was surprised to hear that the number is in fact twice as high. “Have there been that many?” she asked. “I didn’t know that. It’s a bit concerning.” Yinyu Wu GRD ’21, who lives on the eighth floor, said that as far as she knows, only two rooms on the eighth floor have been infested. “I did receive an email from Yale Housing that they have already stopped the problem of bedbugs,” she said. Contact DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY at david.yaffe-bellany@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 5
NEWS
“You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.” ALEXANDER HAMILTON FOUNDING FATHER OF THE U.S.
J Street discusses Israel-Palestine mapping policy BY AYLA BESEMER STAFF REPORTER Over two dozen community members gathered at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale this week for a discussion of mapping intended to bring nuance to the Jewish community’s dialogue on Israel and its relationship to Palestine. A talk on Wednesday, organized by the Yale chapter of J Street U, focused on map policy and how the visual portrayal of Israel influences international dialogues about human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Chelsey Berlin, the event’s main speaker, is the director of B’Tselem USA, the American portion of the Israel-based organization that documents human rights violations in the occupied territories and advocates for a change in Israeli policy. To aid understanding, B’Tselem produces maps that include the political dimensions of the West Bank and Gaza, the focus of Wednesday’s conversation. Currently, maps of Israel at the Slifka Center do not emphasize the Green Line outlining these territories, a feature that J Street members at Yale advocate for in efforts to add nuance and expand pro-Israel dialogue. “We wanted to have this speaker specifically at Slifka because Slifka is an organization that is very engaged with and connected with Israel in a lot of capacities,” said Nathan Swetlitz ’17, one of the co-founders of Yale’s J Street chapter. “We wanted to start a conversation about how we at Yale in general are portraying Israel … and in what ways we are comfortable with that, in what ways we are uncomfortable with that and in what ways we have an obligation to represent Israel in certain ways.” The Yale chapter of J Street was
brought to the University in 2013 by Swetlitz and Elianna Boswell ’17, who returned this week from a J Street lobbying conference in Washington, D.C. J Street, founded in 2007, describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-Palestinian group that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Historically, J Street U and Hillel centers, like the one housed at Slifka, at colleges and universities nationwide have had contentious relationships, Boswell said. Though Slifka and parallel institutions claim to be apolitical spaces, she said, “Nothing about Israel is apolitical.” The first few years on campus were a “struggle” for J Street and involved a substantial amount of back and forth between the two organizations about what J Street was permitted to do in terms of events and community participation, Boswell said. However, now that J Street has established itself on a number of campuses, Boswell added that the conversation has largely shifted from merely vying for inclusion in the Jewish community to creating an open space for discussion. The process of sponsoring a J Street speaker from B’Tselem was not without complications, Boswell said. Initially, Slifka administrators asked the students to have a panel of speakers accompany Berlin, or have her speak alongside a more “rightwing” representative to provide balance. Boswell said that while these requests seemed reasonable, they were representative of a “troubling” dynamic which implies that Slifka can host rightwing speakers without a left-wing balancing act, but not vice versa. “The purpose of the event … [was] to begin to make space not just for a conversation to happen in Slifka, but actually for the
MATTHEW STOCK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
On Wednesday, J Street U hosted a talk on map policy at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. culture to be more reflective of the Jewish student body at large, which we believe wants to have critical conversations and wants to be engaged politically in a real way,” Boswell said. “The culture that has existed up until now is that ‘You can have those conversations, but you better be careful.’” Yonatan Millo, the Jewish Agency Israel Fellow to Slifka, who works with Israel-related groups on campus, said that Slifka is committed to sponsoring events that provide a variety of perspectives to Yale’s campus and include as many students as possible. “Slifka and all the organiza-
tions that are Israel-related strive to make a more inclusive conversation around Israel at large … and to have a much more knowledgeable and nuanced conversation,” Millo said. “[Wednesday’s] event played into exactly that.” Berlin provided attendees with a handout of five maps that included a “tourism” portrayal of Israel, which does not separate the West Bank; a Green Line portrayal, on which the West Bank and Gaza are set apart; and more detailed maps that show political territories. One such map highlighted Area C of the West Bank, which comprises about 60 percent of the West Bank and is home to around
180,000 Palestinians under Israeli control on both security and civil matters, according to the handout. Berlin led attendees through conversations about each map before the group split off into separate discussions about their personal interests in and relationship to the question of maps and Israel. Cyrus Glanzer ’19, who is a member of J Street and helped organize the event, said he found the talk productive, and was happy with the level of audience engagement. He added that he hopes the event “shakes up” the conversation, which is not about being either anti-Israel or anti-Palestine, but “pro-both.”
Because J Street is a Jewish activist group, the conversation will start within the Jewish community but could benefit from the support of students across Yale, he said. Calvin Harrison ’17, who is not involved with J Street but attended the event, said while he enjoyed the talk, the information was somewhat “basic” though still important to provide a basis for dialogues happening on campus. B’Tselem USA was founded in 1989. Contact AYLA BESEMER at ayla.besemer@yale.edu .
SOM student looks to define consent in porn BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER Over the last few years, college campuses have become a hotbed for conversations about the meaning of consent and how to address sexual violence. With the rise of affirmative consent laws in California, New York and several other states, the country is codifying new definitions of consent. Yet there is one industry that is struggling to define consent: pornography. An already marginalized community, pornography and the problems that afflict performers in the industry remain a stigmatized topic today. Enter Mark Khazanov SOM ’18, a first-year Silver Scholar at the Yale School of Management. Khazanov is one of the founders of ICON(sent), a project that aims to use technology to redefine consent and to create tools that performers can use to exercise rights and take control of their own content. “The harm that’s been caused to performers is a direct result of the lack of education and training
that’s been provided to this community,” he said. Kyle Jensen, the director of entrepreneurship at SOM, serves in an advisory role for the independent study project. Khazanov called Jensen an “inspiring” individual and cited him as a factor in his decision to come to Yale. “Mark feels passionately about eliminating abuse in the adultcontent industry,” Jensen said. “I hope he is successful at eliminating abuse.” Khazanov said that to the best of his knowledge, ICON(sent) is the only group in the country looking at how to help producers, rather than consumers, of porn. An engineer by training, Khazanov heads a multiperson team that began exploring what consent in the porn industry looks like. The team examined it through four different lenses, he explained: education, meaning performers understood their rights and were able to communicate health care concerns and boundaries to producers; voice, ensuring performers’ concerns and com-
yale institute of sacred music presents
stravinsky
Les Noces and other works
Yale Camerata marguerite l. brooks conductor with
plaints were taken seriously and addressed appropriately; transparency, particularly that the production companies communicate their terms and standards to performers clearly; and practices of consent, which ensure performers feel as if they are in control thanks to the use of safe words and regular check-ins. Many of these rights have been lost in the changing landscape of the porn industry. With studies estimating that as many as 35 percent of all Internet downloads contain pornographic material, online porn providers have been gaining in popularity since the web’s creation. These online sites, often referred to as “tube sites” because, like YouTube, they aggregate content uploaded by users, compete with studios and other traditional content producers. While conducting research for ICON(sent), Khazanov said he realized the porn industry is slowly becoming monopolized. A company called MindGeek, which began in advertising and later built some of the early tube
sites, has emerged as the leading provider of porn, much of which is pirated — and without distinguishing between proprietary and pirated porn, MindGeek collects the profits that should instead go to those in the videos. MindGeek currently owns some of the largest and most popular tube sites in the world, as well as multiple production companies. “If we were able to effectively combine social movements with a distribution platform of pornography that has our technology as its infrastructure, we could really generate a mass redirection of demand away from irresponsible distributors like MindGeek to something that really guarantees worker rights as the workers within the industry define it,” Khazanov said. Now that the team has a few connections to the industry and has concluded user interviews, Khazanov said, the group has begun to develop the technology for the reforms they want to establish. To simplify the process, Khazanov plans on moving out to the San Francisco Bay Area this
yale institute of sacred music presents
Teesri Dhun the third tune Documentary theater on transgender struggles in Pakistan performed in Urdu with English surtitles audience talkback follows
saturday, april 23 · 7:30 pm
Yale Percussion Ensemble robert van sice director
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Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu Presented in collaboration with the South Asian Studies Council
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YOUR Y D N DA ILY
summer and forming partnerships with several major organizations in the industry. Ultimately, the team hopes to co-develop an educational platform with the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, a group founded by performers in the porn industry. The organization “advocates to maintain and improve safety and working conditions in the adult film industry by giving adult performers organized representation in matters that affect [their] health, safety and community.” Its mission, the website continues, is to have members educate one another and the greater community, develop ethical best practices, foster solidarity and review existing health and safety protocols, crafting new ones as needed. APAC released its launch statement in February of 2014 alongside a video called “Porn 101,” an educational resource that drew attention to the challenges facing performers in the porn industry, many of which are related to health and wellness, legal rights
and the intersection of financial interests. “The stigma fueling those messages — that no one would do porn willingly, so the line between porn and rape doesn’t matter, but also that porn performers who are raped are at fault — is responsible for keeping porn performers silent,” Melissa Gira Grant wrote in Dec. 4, 2015, article in The Guardian. “It is what puts them at risk.” Khazanov echoed that thought, pointing out the paradoxical nature of the industry. The thing that drives users to pay for access to these videos is the one thing performers will never want to be seen as: helpless performers. Consumers want to see people who need to be saved, he pointed out, and perhaps the only way to revitalize the industry is to pretend performers are not creating content with their own will. The porn industry generates approximately $13 billion per year in the United States. Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .
PAGE 6
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.” ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
Alumni role shifts over time mary channel of communication between Yale and its graduates. With former Vice President for Strategic and Global Initiatives Linda Lorimer’s departure last spring, Yale’s two main alumni branches — the AYA and the Office of Development — have moved to report under a single administrator, O’Neill. Previously, these organizations were part of separate divisions, reflecting the notion that the AYA solicits alumni “time and talent, not treasure,” as AYA Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives Steve Blum ’74 put it. Blum acknowledged that having solicitation and alumni activities under the same division could blur the lines between the mission of each individual body. “We worry about that,” Blum said of the administrative shuffle. “We do worry that the message could get in the way of the effectiveness of what we do.” Still, both Blum and O’Neill conceded that development and other forms of alumni involvement are naturally linked, as people who are more engaged with Yale are more likely to give at higher rates and to feel good about their giving. The administration has also been slow to fill the leadership gap created by the departure of Mark Dollhopf ’77, who served as executive director of the AYA since 2006. A search for a new executive director has been ongoing since last spring, and Michael Madison ’83, who chairs the search committee, said in February that the search is not governed by any specific timetable and that the AYA will wait to find the right person for the job. Nearly a year later, that person has still not been found. Furthermore, unable to maintain financial stability in the absence of adequate revenue, the Yale Alumni Magazine became a University department in July 2015. Amidst all this change, the AYA has been working to rebrand itself in a light favorable to young alumni. Blum described a renais-
sance of programs catering to alumni in recent years, such as the Yale Alumni Service Corps, the Yale Global Alumni Leadership Exchange and the Yale Day of Service. The latter program is one of the best examples of an initiative that has gone from its infancy to one of the University’s most prominent alumni events over the course of a few years, especially for recent graduates. The Yale Day of Service is held at locations around the world and is coordinated by a different group of alumni for each service site. The first Yale Day of Service was held in 2009, and it has maintained an attendance of over 4,000 participants for the past two years. In the past 10 years, the AYA has also created Careers, Life and Yale and Students and Alumni of Yale. One of the reasons these programs work so well, Chavira said, is that they give alumni the chance to take control of an initiative for a relatively short period of time, and then be done with it. She said this attitude is different from that of older alumni, who might seek more permanent, established positions. Blum also spoke to this new entrepreneurial spirit among younger alumni seeking to make a meaningful, hands-on contribution to a program that matters to them. Indeed, young alumni are attracted to these events in high numbers: 34 percent of the participants in last year’s Yale Day of Service in May had graduated in 2000 or later. Blum said empowering alums by allowing them to take charge of AYA-generated initiatives is one of the ways in which the organization can ensure sustained engagement with Yale. This mentality seems to carry over into the development world as well, where young alumni are more likely to want to be involved in the process of where their donations are going, according to O’Neill. “All of us like to know where our money is going and that it’s making a difference,” said Elizabeth Knuppel, president of Skystone Partners, a higher educa-
tion fundraising consulting firm. “It is more exaggerated in the younger generation.” Administrators spoke to the importance of “meeting alumni where they are” and remaining in touch with their needs and wants. In order to address the enormous number of nonprofit organizations to which Yale alumni can donate, O’Neill said it is important to illustrate exactly how a specific contribution can help support causes important to alumni. For example, she said, if alumni are concerned about the environment, the Office of Development would demonstrate how that contribution can support research in that particular field.
Total class size
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BEN WONG/PRODUCTION & DESIGN ASSISTANT
PAPERLESS POST
As the Office of Development competes for donations, the AYA increasingly finds itself competing for alumni time and attention. Social media services like Facebook make it unnecessary for alumni to read class notes — updates on classmates’ lives printed bimonthly in the Alumni Magazine — or attend reunions to see which of their classmates have gotten married, had children or passed away. LinkedIn allows graduates to circumvent traditional networking events — one of the AYA’s most common events — to find Yale alumni working in relevant fields near them. At the very least, these phenomena make it easier for people to retreat into their own respective circles, rather than engaging with the class as a whole. Tony Lavely ’64, class secretary for the class of 1964, said class notes for younger alumni classes are typically far less thorough than those for the older classes. He said this confuses him, since social media fosters connectivity among his class that would have been more difficult without it. “It puzzles me that for the classes that are most inclined to use social media, it doesn’t seem to translate,” Lavely said. “It just seems like in those late pages of the magazine, the columns get pretty skinny.”
Council of Masters push to change title MASTERS FROM PAGE 1 ber that the council planned to submit a recommendation to Salovey by the time winter break ended in mid-January, with the understanding that it would be presented to the Corporation. “We would formally convey a recommendation on behalf of the Council of Masters to the Corporation,” Salovey said on January 16. “That is certainly something the Corporation would pay close attention to.” The Corporation gathered in February and early April, and Vice President for Communications Eileen O’Connor told the News after the most recent meeting two weeks ago that there will be no further Corporation involvement before naming decisions are announced, suggesting that decisions have already been made. Salovey told the News on April 10 that the names of the two new residential colleges, as well as the fate of Calhoun College and the title of “master,” will be announced all at once, sometime before final exams. Interviews with Woodbridge Hall officials, Corporation members, vice presidents, residential college masters and faculty members revealed that the circle of individuals directly informed of the decisions still remains small — not even masters know whether their term of address will be altered. O’Connor said she had “absolutely no comment” on whether the title will be changed. Holloway, Corporation Fellow Donna Dubinsky ’77 and Senior Fellow Margaret Marshall LAW ’75 all declined to comment, as did Corporation Fellow Charles Goodyear IV ’80, who deferred to Salovey. Salovey declined to comment. Salovey told the News that he presented a formal recommendation on the matter to the Corporation this semester, despite maintaining for months that he would not do so. O’Connor declined to specify whether Salovey’s recommendation aligned with the council’s. Pressure to move away from the title of “master” has come not only from the council, but also from Yale’s student activists and peer institutions. Next Yale, a group of students advocating for a more inclusive campus, demanded in midNovember that Yale replace the title.
Alumni in attendance
GRAPH FIFTH REUNION ATTENDANCE RATE OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS
NUMBER OF PEOPLE
ALUMNI FROM PAGE 1
JACOB STERN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The News has confirmed that the Council of Masters voted in favor of eliminating the title after November’s protests. And Harvard and Princeton eliminated the title last fall after campus protests centered on racism and discrimination emerged nationwide. But Salovey and other administrators have said Yale would reach conclusions independently. “The actions of our peer institutions have no effect on our timetable and no effect on our decisions,” O’Connor said last week. “This is a decision for Yale and Yale alone.” Conversations about whether to retain the title “master” at Yale began in August, when Pierson College head Stephen Davis asked that students no longer call him by the title, citing the discomfort it caused students and its negative associations. “I think there should be no context in our society or in our university in which an African-American student, professor or staff member — or any person, for that matter — should be asked to call anyone ‘master,’” Davis wrote to the Pierson community. “And there should be no context where male-gendered titles should be normalized as markers of authority.” Davis is the current chair of the Council of Masters. Contact DAVID SHIMER at david.shimer@yale.edu .
Still, in some ways social media has made it easier for Yale to communicate with and engage its alumni in events and new initiatives. The inexpensiveness of email means that AYA officers can email more frequently for a lower cost. Reunion data shows that attendance among every age group has increased over the past 20 years, with a higher number of young alumni attending their fifth reunions now than ever before. Tommy Rosenkranz ’17, class secretary for the class of 2017, saw social media not as a factor that would render alumni associations obsolete, but as a tool that can be used to broaden their reach. “Platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook can be used as powerful tools to promote consistent, targeted engagement between graduates and the Yale alumni networks,” he said. “As long as class representatives incorporate new forms of social media into their long-term engagement strategies, they will benefit from their scope and precision.”
BULLDOGS FOREVER
When Chavira graduated from Yale in 1989, she did something almost unheard of in her time: She went to work at Yale.
“Literally, people could not compute that somebody was still in New Haven,” Chavira said. “The idea that somebody could actually still be here and working here, living in New Haven, having a career — it just didn’t occur to them.” She said it took around 10 years for her to stop having interactions with fellow alumni in which they were surprised that she was working at Yale. That perception seems to have been completely flipped around in the wake of a new way in which alumni engage with the University. Now, Yale is consistently one of the top employers for each graduating class, beginning in 2013 when the Office of Career Strategy began collecting data. Last year, 50 recent graduates went to work at Yale after graduation, with the majority in research positions. However, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the Yale College Dean’s Office and the Office of Development all hire recent graduates to work in administrative positions at Yale immediately after graduation. One of the most prominent programs in this respect is the Woodbridge Fellowship, which typically brings in between three and 10 graduates per year to work in Yale departments. The fellowship was founded in 2005 by for-
mer President Richard Levin. Alumni interviews, too, are a growing field in which alumni can become involved with Yale. This year’s number of alumni interviews set a record, with 20,228 administered to prospective students. The Alumni Schools Committee, which coordinates the interviews with the Admissions Office, is one of Yale’s most robust alumni associations, with 6,500 active volunteers. Laura Farwell ’85, an ASC director for the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, said that her ASC involvement has made her feel more connected to Yale than anything else since graduation. But it remains uncertain as to whether one of type of engagement — financial or otherwise — truly replaces the other. Administrators interviewed generally believed that both are part of meaningful engagement, rather than one being supplemental to the other. Farwell agreed. “To me, giving time versus giving financially as different pieces of the same pie,” Farwell said, “not one as a substitute for the other but rather one as possibly easier or more desirable than the other depending on where one is in life.” Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu .
Clintons come to CT CLINTON FROM PAGE 1 ent at the discussion, reaffirmed their endorsements of Clinton. “I want to be the president for the struggling and the striving,” Clinton said. “I find it absolutely indefensible — the arguments made by people who will not accept responsibility for what is going on in this country.” She lauded Connecticut’s effort in pushing for stricter gun control policies under Malloy’s leadership. During his tenure as governor, Malloy has advocated for increased gun control legislation in the state, passing an array of some of the nation’s toughest laws following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Clinton attributed the stagnancy of gun control reform to the strength of the gun lobby, which she called the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C. “They have figured out a way to intimidate elected officials at all levels, who just stop thinking about this issue because they are too scared to stand up to the [National Rifle Association],” Clinton stated. The panelists represented a broad swath of community members: some who lost close family members in the Sandy Hook shooting, some who broke free from the cycle of poverty and used their experience to forge a path for other disadvantaged youths and some who bore witness to and have decided to fight against the atrocities of gun violence. Among the five panelists was Erica Smegielski, who lost her mother — Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung — in the Newtown shooting. Smegielski admitted that prior to the tragedy, gun violence and gun-related crimes were not “on [her] radar” aside from watching the news. She said she began advocating for common-sense gun laws shortly after recovering from the death of her mother. “There is nothing I can do to bring [my mother] back,” Smegielski said. “What I can do is stand up and use my voice and story to motivate other people to use their voice and share their stories and come together on this issue.” Fellow panelist Iran Nazario, program director of Peacebuilders — an
organization that provides youth with psychological first aid, crisis intervention and grief counseling — personified the cultural implication of normalizing gun violence. He spoke of his first experience with a gun as a 9-yearold watching a police officer point a gun at his mother as she was being arrested for a drug offense. Nazario subsequently became a child of “the system” — a foster child thrust into a cycle of imprisonment and homelessness. “I became a statistic,” Nazario said. Clinton said she hopes to initiate programs that act as a positive replacement for gangs, in order to “protect, support and guide” students. She added that she believes when young people like Nazario wish to turn their lives around, they should be supplied with sources to support their “constant and continuous learning.” Clinton iterated the inequality that exists in many aspects of American society, including the uneven distribution of educational resources. Kim Washington, founder of New Haven Moms Demand Action — a nonprofit that provides encouragement to families affected by gunrelated crimes in the New Haven and Hamden areas — also emphasized the need for communities to act together against gun violence. At the roundtable, Hartford com-
munity members Nancy Kirchmyer and Judy Carrithers expressed their dedication to Clinton for her resolve to institute more austere gun control measures. Carrithers said Clinton’s dedication to implementing these regulations could make the election a “one-issue vote” for her. The roundtable also attracted a considerable number of college students. “She has a lot of youth support — we’re just not the loudest people in the room,” Wesleyan freshman Henry Miller said. While Clinton addressed the crowd in Hartford, her campaign effort in New Haven took on a lighter tone. In the late afternoon, Bill Clinton stopped outside Varick Memorial AME Zion Church, an evangelist church in Dixwell — a predominantly black neighborhood to the north of Yale’s campus — where he briefly met with the church’s Rev. Eldren Morrison, who oversees the church’s congregation of 1,100. He later drove to Wooster Square to grab a slice of pizza at the city’s famous Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. Finnegan Schick contributed reporting. Contact AMY CHENG at xiaomeng.cheng@yale.edu and CAITLYN WHERRY at caitlyn.wherry@yale.edu .
COURTESY OF JESSICA M. CLINTON
Bill Clinton LAW ’73 visited the Elm City Thursday.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
NEWS
“There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” HARRY TRUMAN 33RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Two juniors awarded Truman Scholarships BY JON VICTOR STAFF REPORTER Two Yale students this year were awarded Truman Scholarships, a prestigious grant given to roughly 60 college juniors showing exceptional leadership promise in government and public service. J.T. Flowers ’17 and Sean Moore ’17 were Yale’s winners this year, and Yale had the same number of recipients for the class of 2016. The Truman Scholarship, an official federal memorial to U.S. President Harry Truman, provides students with $30,000 to apply toward graduate school abroad or in the United States. After graduate school, Truman Scholars must work in a public service position at least three out of their first seven years after graduation. “I’m still kind of in disbelief,” Flowers said. “I don’t think I’ve been able to fully process the weight that this is going to have on my life. I feel incredibly privileged.” Each year, the foundation accepts between 55 and 65 undergraduates out of a pool of around 600 students, who must first secure one of their respective college’s four nominations after an internal application process. As part of the application process, candidates are required to submit a sample policy proposal on a topic of their choice. Flowers, who is majoring in global affairs and ethnicity, race and migration, said he wants to pursue a master’s degree in public policy at Oxford University after graduation. He said he is drawn to Oxford’s program because of its international focus and because it is similar to the global affairs department at Yale in that both are focused more on practical, rather than
COURTESY OF SEAN MOORE AND J.T. FLOWERS
Sean Moore ’17 and J.T. Flowers ’17 have both received the Truman Scholarship this year. academic, material. At Yale, Flowers founded A Leg Even, a nonprofit organization that seeks to combat specific challenges faced by freshmen from low-income families. Flowers said he does not yet know what career he wants to pursue after finishing school, but that in whatever field he chooses, he wants to increase access to opportunity and socioeconomic mobility among under-resourced populations. He added that this line of work may be found through a number of career paths, including law,
business, government, public health or journalism. Moore, a political science major, said he hopes to study policy or comparative social policy in graduate school, though he does not yet know where. He currently serves on the board of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project as the head of men’s mentoring. He was homeless from the age of 18 to 21 and graduated from community college before coming to Yale. “I think that the Truman [Scholarship] will help me by connecting me to others who are
doing similar work, and since I plan on working in the private not-for-profit sector, I hope Truman will help me cultivate relationships in government,” Moore said. Yale Director of National Fellowships Kate Dailinger said the Truman Scholarship seeks candidates who have demonstrated commitment to public service and who have the potential to be effective agents of change in the world. Beyond a scholarship for graduate or professional training and access to an impressive alumni network, she said, the
Truman Scholarship also provides recipients with leadership training and mentorship. “One of the things that I love about working with Yale students is that so many of them are seriously committed to service and interested in public service careers,” Dailinger said. “So, as you can imagine, there is fierce competition on campus for the strictly limited nomination spots for the Truman each year.” Flowers said he chose to apply to the Truman Scholarship because of his personal interest in the scholarship’s namesake,
Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
william j. foltz journalism award
which began when Flowers read a biography of him while taking former Vermont governor Howard Dean’s course, “The Politics of Foreign Policy.” Flowers said he admired that Truman never strayed from his core principles even when making tough decisions, which is a quality he hopes to embody. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation awarded the first scholarships in the 1977–78 academic year. Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu .
gsas.yale.edu
IN THE COMPANY OF SCHOLARS
are you a yale student who has recently published an article? Apply for The MacMillan Center’s Foltz Journalism Award! You could be awarded $300. Articles entered must relate to some aspect of international affairs, area studies, or foreign relations, and may cover any activity held on the Yale campus or events elsewhere. The story must treat the subject with originality, be wellwritten, and help the audience gain greater knowledge and understanding of international issues. Articles must have appeared in a Yale publication or other publication, print or online, between May 2015 and April 2016. Entries must be submitted online or dropped off at The MacMillan Center, Director’s Suite, Henry R. Luce Hall. Include a copy of the article and a completed entry form. Only one entry per student. Deadline for submissions is May 6, 2016, at 4:00 p.m. For information, visit macmillan.yale.edu/journalismaward The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale is the University’s focal point for promoting teaching and research on all aspects of international affairs, societies, and cultures around the world.
For Rules and Entry Form, visit
macmillan.yale.edu/journalismaward
Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
JONATHON HOWARD The Cell’s Motors: Nature’s Tiniest Machines for Molecular Transport and Assembly Host: Lynn Cooley, Dean,Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Tuesday, April 26, 4 pm, 2016 Room 119, Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York Street A reception will follow in the McDougal Center Common Room
Final Entry Deadline is
Friday, May 6, 2016 at 4pm the whitney and betty macmillan center for international and area studies at yale
macmillan.yale.edu
Yale
PAGE 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 9
AROUND THE IVIES
“Read my lips: no new taxes.” GEORGE H. W. BUSH 41ST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
THE DARTMOUTH
T H E H A R VA R D C R I M S O N
ROTC members discuss identity
Faust defends tax-exempt endowment
ROBERT WORLEY/THE HARVARD CRIMSON
Harvard president Drew Faust visited D.C. this week to defend the state of Harvard’s endowment. BY ANDREW DUEHREN SAPHFIRE BROWN/THE DARTMOUTH
Dartmouth ROTC members train in Leverone Field House. BY SONIA QIN The armed forces can often seem like a far-removed subject from the lives of most — especially for college students living in isolated Hanover, New Hampshire. For the students enrolled in Dartmouth’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, however, the knowledge that they will serve as officers in the United States Army one day has shaped their view of their time at the college and beyond. Currently, 14 students are enrolled in Dartmouth’s ROTC program, although numbers in recent years have been as high as 20. Women account for almost 50 percent of students enrolled in the college’s program — currently eight of the students are male and six are female. Nationwide, this gender balance is not reflected, with women accounting for 15.3 percent of active-duty personnel in the U.S. military today. In recent years, women’s roles in the armed forces have expanded. With the repeal of the ground combat exclusion policy in January 2013, women can now be assigned to previously all-male units such as infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers and some special operations units. These units all have a primary mission of engaging in ground combat. Capt/ Keith Schnell, who oversees the college’s ROTC program, said that it has become routine to have women in leadership roles in the army, especially after the decision to open up all military career fields to women. Rachael Rhee, who joined ROTC during her sophomore winter, hopes that women in leadership roles in the army will affect both the culture of the military and the societal perceptions of women. As a woman of color, Rhee emphasized the importance of a junior officer seeing examples of females of color in positions of leadership. “I’m here today because of those who came before me,” she said. “You have to set the example and be a resource and be a pillar of mentorship for females.” Rhee said that while she has never felt discriminated against as a woman of color in Dartmouth’s ROTC, in the real army, “You have to earn your place every day.” “There’s one standard, and that’s the army standard,” she added. “Everyone is held to that, no matter who you are.” Seniors spend a minimum of 10 hours per week in a combination of both physical and class-
room training, while f re s h m e n , sophomores and juniors s p e n t between DARTMOUTH six to nine hours in the program weekly. Many ROTC members said that engagement in the program has taught them skills they otherwise would not have attained at the college. David Berg said ROTC has been “hugely transformative.” He discovered and joined the program his freshman fall. He contracted to the Army in his sophomore fall and is now committed to eight years of service following his graduation this spring. Rhee said there was something about her Dartmouth experience that was “not enough.” The program has given her a deeper understanding of the value of leadership and how to inspire trust and loyalty in others, she said. She contracted to the army during her junior fall. “I needed something more challenging, more tangible than a lot of the social jousting that a lot of us do here at Dartmouth,” she said. Morgan Corley said she started thinking about doing ROTC in her senior year of high school and reached out to the program during her freshman fall. She has not yet contracted, but plans on doing so in her junior year. Corley added that the program has shown her a wider picture of the world outside the Dartmouth bubble. Dartmouth’s ROTC program is less visible these days, but in the past, the program stirred controversy and made national political conflict felt in Hanover. In the early 1970s, student-led protests, which spoke out against the Vietnam War and ROTC as a military presence on campus, led to the program’s abolishment. Most notably, in 1969, about 80 students sat in Parkhurst Hall for 12 hours to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the college’s military ties and the Board of Trustees’ decision to continue supporting ROTC at Dartmouth. Prior to its hiatus in the 1960s, almost 400 students participated in ROTC, which offered scholarships and course credit for participants. In the early 1980s, Dartmouth President David McLaughlin allowed the return of Army ROTC, but the Navy and Air Force programs have not since re-emerged. ROTC gives a scholarship to college students who want to contract to an eight-year ser-
yale institute of sacred music and letters journal present
Russian Ark Alexander Sokurov, Russia, 2002
friday, april 22 · 7:30 pm · ism great hall · 409 prospect st.
Free; free parking. ISM Baltic Film Series
vice commitment with the Army. Chris Aguemon is a recipient of this scholarship, and chose to commit early in his freshman fall because it was a strong fit for his personality and future plans, he said. He said that the ability to be more patient has been the biggest way in which he has grown since joining the program. “Everyone has a role and in order to fulfill your role you have to trust the people around you to fulfill their role as well,” Aguemon said. “This translates to leadership because if you’re patient with the people you’re working with they’ll be more likely to trust you and to perform better.” Aguemon played for Dartmouth’s varsity football team his freshman and sophomore years. He said that his friendships from ROTC are very similar to the ones formed on a varsity team. “That bond goes deeper because we realize the decisions we’re making can affect not just ourselves but also whoever we end up leading in the future,” Aguemon added. Schnell said the commitment to serve in the Army is the biggest difference between ROTC students and their peers. “Dartmouth students have a lot of opportunities open to them,” he said. “In spite of that, they’ve chosen to commit at least three or four years of their life, if not longer, to serving their country and to doing something not a lot of other people do.” ROTC students also identified differences between their ROTC experience and their academic experience on campus. Aguemon said that the courses in ROTC are more goal-oriented, while Corley said that the atmosphere in ROTC is more structured and professional than the atmosphere of a Dartmouth classroom. The 42-page essay, “Message to Garcia” — which has been on the Marine Corps’ Commandant’s professional reading list every year since the list began in 1989 — highlights a difference between skills taught in ROTC and those taught in the classroom. Rhee said that this essay emphasizes the necessity of “getting the job done” rather than questioning orders, which highlights a difference from the academic culture at the college. “I feel that a lot of the time at Dartmouth, we’re constantly challenged to criticize, to ask ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’” she said. “As a leader in the army, you shouldn’t be asking your superior why and how to do everything.”
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Harvard President Drew Faust traveled to Washington D.C. this week to advocate for maintaining the taxexempt status of Harvard’s $37.6 billion endowment and increasing federal research funding. R e c e n t l y, H a r va r d ’s endowment has come under scrutiny from members of Congress who wonder if large university endowments should be taxed. Earlier this year, some members of Congress requested that all schools with endowments larger than $1 billion answer a series of questions about how they use the money from their endowments. Faust responded with a public letter justifying the endowment’s tax-exempt status and explaining how it funds a number of the university’s programs, including financial aid. In an interview before her trip, Faust said that she would be “trying to explain how endowments work and why they’re important and why they’re a good thing, not a bad thing” to the House Ways and Means Committee members who raised questions about endowments.
Fa u s t also met w i t h s eve ra l legislators, including U.S. HARVARD S e n s . Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch, John Reed and Benjamin Sasse, according to Harvard spokesman Jeff Neal. U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who was on campus earlier this month with Faust to unveil a plaque dedicated to four slaves who lived and worked at Harvard in the 18th century, and Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal were also among the public officials Faust met. In those meetings, Faust focused on federal funding for scientific research at colleges and universities. Harvard receives hundreds of millions of dollars every year for scientific research funding, but in recent years, among federal budget cuts, federal support has declined. In 2015, Harvard received less than $800 million from outside funding sources, including the federal government — the lowest amount it has received since 2010. Faust said she regularly argues for increased federal
research funding from the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, among other sources, when she meets with legislators. “A constant is science funding and making the case for the kinds of discovery and insight that come out of our science faculty,” Faust said earlier this month. On her trip, Faust also met with other university presidents at the Association of American Universities, a higher-education nonprofit that counts more than 60 colleges and universities as members, according to Neal. “The presidents all come together for two and a half days of meetings in Washington on a variety of subjects,” Faust said. “The program varies from year to year, and I usually spend some time visiting people on the Hill and in the government to make the case for universities and make connections around issues that relate to our public perceptions and legislative issues.” In 2015, Harvard spent $540,000 lobbying Congress and the federal government, according to public records filed with Congress.
PAGE 10
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
SPORTS
“If you don’t feel good, act like you feel good. You don’t want to present to the opposition, ‘This guy is unsure of himself.’” JAKE ARRIETA CUBS PITCHER WHO HAS THROWN TWO NO-HITTERS
First place on the line at Dartmouth BASEBALL FROM PAGE 12 Wednesday’s 15–2 victory over Wesleyan as part of an offensive firestorm for the Bulldogs. Against Wesleyan, center fielder Tim DeGraw ’19 also had himself a day, going 3–4 with two walks. DeGraw will be aiming to maintain his hot bat versus the Big Green, as the freshman is hitting 0.385 in conference play with eight RBI. He ranks sixth in the Ivy League overall with 21 RBI. Joining DeGraw in the outfield is the senior duo of Brent Lawson ’16 and Nate Adams ’16, who have both been major contributors to the Yale offense. Lawson, who is batting 0.289, is eighth in the conference with a 0.482 slugging percentage, while Adams leads the Bulldogs with a 0.325 batting average. And at the heart of the Bulldog order is third baseman Richard Slenker ’17, who is hitting at a 0.310 clip with 13 doubles, 17 RBI and seven stolen bases. As a whole, Yale’s offense ranks third during Ivy play in runs per game despite ranking sixth in the Ancient Eight in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. The Elis’ triumph over Wesleyan served as a bounce-back performance after dropping three of four games against Harvard last weekend. “Our division is going to be a
dogfight — it always is,” captain Chris Moates ’16 said after the weekend series versus the Crimson. “It’s going to be about which team can stay consistent, stick to the process and stay numb to the results. I’m confident that we can do this, and that it will pay off.” While the Elis lost ground in the divisional standings last weekend, the Big Green split their four games against Brown and then swept a pair of contests from Cornell on Wednesday to pull even with Yale. Not far behind the Bulldogs and Big Green are Brown and Harvard, as both schools sit just two games out of first place. Heading into the pivotal series, Dartmouth and its middling offense will be led by a trio of infielders. Shortstop Thomas Roulis is batting 0.302 with 13 RBI, while second baseman Dustin Shirley has five triples, 11 RBI and a 0.414 slugging percentage. Meanwhile, the Big Green’s pop is most often provided by clean-up hitter and first baseman Michael Ketchmark. Ketchmark has smacked four home runs — the rest of the Dartmouth has a combined five homers — while also compiling 22 RBI and a 0.435 slugging percentage. At the top of the Bulldog rotation, right-handed pitchers Scott Politz ’19 and Chasen Ford ’17 will attempt to neutralize Ketchmark and company, and
YALE DAILY NEWS
In Yale’s seven Ivy wins, its pitching staff has allowed four runs per game. Meanwhile, the Bulldog staff has allowed 8.4 runs on average in its five losses. continue their impressive Ivy League campaigns. On the season as a whole, Politz has a 3.44 ERA and a 4–3 record over 49.2 innings of work. He has tossed four consecutive complete games, including each of his three Ivy League starts. In 20 conference innings, Politz has limited opposing batters to just
11 hits. Ford won each of his first two Ivy starts before receiving a nodecision in a 6–3 loss to Harvard last Saturday despite exiting the game with the lead. After registering a 5.09 ERA in nonconference play, the Lake Forest, California, native has stepped up against Ivy competition and
posted a 3.47 ERA in 23.1 innings, during which he has only walked three batters. “We have our minds set for what we are playing for, but you can’t really think that macro when you are playing these individuals games,” Adams said. “We just have to keep doing what we have been taught and preach-
No. 4 Bulldogs host No. 6 Albany M. LACROSSE FROM PAGE 12 because there is a very talented Albany team coming to town on Saturday.” The clash at Reese Stadium will feature two of the best offenses in the country. Yale enters the matchup averaging 13.2 goals per game, and Albany is not far behind, averaging 12.9, putting the two teams at seventh and ninth in the nation, respectively. Yale’s offense is led by attackman Ben Reeves ’18, whose 29 goals and 25 assists this season rank him fourth in Division I with 4.9 points per game. Albany attackmen Seth Oakes and Connor Fields anchor the Great Dane offense, averaging 2.7 and 2.6 goals per game. Oakes and Fields combined for seven goals against the Bulldogs last season. While Albany has proved lethal in 6-on-6 offense this year, the Great Danes have been most dangerous this year on the extra-man, scoring on 50 percent of their opportunities, the sixth-highest nationally. Yale, which allows 3.1 man-up opportunities per game, will likely struggle if it commits a significant number of penalties on Saturday. Forcing another kind of mishap, turnovers, is also a major part of Albany’s game. The Great Danes have caused an average of 8.6 turnovers per game this season, ranking them seventh in the nation in takeaways. “They are a team that likes to push the tempo of the game, so we have to make sure we get back on defense and match up,” goalie Phil Huffard ’18 said. Though Albany has given up 9.5 goals per game — 2.2 more than Yale, and a middling 25th among D-I teams — the Great Danes have a big asset in net. Senior goalie Blaze Riordan is ranked third in the nation in save percentage after stopping 60 percent of the shots he has faced this season. Riordan made national headlines last
year for his running the length of the field, dodging and scoring in Albany’s opening game of the NCAA tournament against Cornell. “They feed off of their goalie for momentum,” captain and defender Michael Quinn ’16 said. “He has the ability to win them games.” While Riordan, Oakes and Fields return for the Great Danes, Albany will be without Lyle Thompson, who had three goals and four assists against Yale in the two teams’ 2015 matchup. Thompson, who now plays professionally for the Florida Launch, is the all-time NCAA leader in career points and assists. “Lyle Thompson gave us some trouble last year,” Quinn said. “As a team Albany got us away from playing our style of lacrosse, like Brown did last weekend.” Like they have been all season, faceoffs will be crucial for Yale on Saturday. The Bulldogs won only nine of 29 in last week’s game at Brown, but they will have a chance to improve against Albany, a team that has been similarly mediocre from the faceoff X this season. Yale comes into the contest having won only 48 percent of its draws, while Albany enters the battle with a mark of 46 percent. The faceoff battle is one of many fundamentals the Bulldogs are working on after last week’s loss against Brown, according to midfielder Michael Keasey ’16. “We are going back to the basics and focusing on us this week,” Keasey said. “We will have to work to get quality shots to beat [Albany’s] defense and goalie.” Saturday’s game will start at 12 p.m.. In other Ivy League action on Saturday, Brown travels to Cornell with a chance to secure home-field advantage at the Ivy League Tournament, which begins on May 6. Contact MATTHEW MISTER at matthew.mister@yale.edu .
ing all year long … We will let the chips fall where they may at the end of the season, and hopefully we are on top.” On both Saturday and Sunday, the first games of the doubleheader will begin at noon. Contact JACOB MITCHELL at jacob.mitchell@yale.edu .
Elis look to snap four-game losing skid W. LACROSSE FROM PAGE 12
ROBBIE SHORT/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs finish their regular season with two home games: against Albany on Saturday, and against Harvard a week later.
Moreover, Yale has not beaten its fellow Ancient Eight foe in over a decade, with the most recent victory versus the Quakers coming in 2004. But according to Yale goalie Sydney Marks ’18, the recent history of the rivalry is not a concern. “I don’t think it [impacts the game] at all,” Marks said. “I didn’t even know that [streak] and it still doesn’t really faze me. I can assure you that we plan on ending this season with a bang if we can, especially since everyone on the team has been working their butts off this past week. We just want to move forward in any way we can.” Returning home may help the Elis pull off the upset. Although Yale dropped its two most recent contests at Reese Stadium, the Bulldogs still boast a 4–2 record in New Haven. Beyond a chance to pull off an impressive win over the ranked Quakers, Yale has an opportunity to close out the debut season of head coach Erica LaGrow, and her coaching staff, on a high note. “It’s been really great having her and [assistant coaches] Sloane [Serpe] and Alyssa [Murray] this year,” defender Victoria Moore ’17 said. “They’re all so talented and knowledgeable about the game; it’s amazing to get to learn from them and have them practice with us so we can see some concepts they are teaching.” Saturday’s contest is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. Contact KEVIN BENDESKY at kevin.bendesky@yale.edu .
Yale visits two-time defending Ivy champion SOFTBALL FROM PAGE 12
COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS
Pitcher Lindsay Efflandt ’17 allowed just two runs against Harvard last weekend in 21.2 innings of work.
ing number one and two in batting average. Shortstop Katie McEachern bats 0.446 while boasting similarly impressive onbase and slugging percentages of 0.541 and 0.821, respectively. Though McEachern is a senior and a longtime dominant presence in the Ivy League and NCAA rankings, freshman Morgan Martinelli nearly equals her dominance. In 29 games this spring, Martinelli has a batting average of 0.423. Pitcher Francesca Casalino ’18 said that playing Dartmouth is especially challenging because the Big Green coaching staff recruits from Texas and California — two softball powerhouse states — than those of other Ivy League teams. McEachern hails from San
Diego, and Martinelli is a Morgan Hill, California native. “Their coach knows how to teach them how to hit so they are great at making adjustments, which makes it difficult as pitchers to try and work around,” Casalino said. “They know how to take away that outside pitch by getting on the plate and driving it to right field.” Still, Yale’s pitchers enter the weekend with momentum coming off impressive outings against Sacred Heart on Wednesday. Lindsay Efflandt ’17 pitched a complete-game victory, while Terra Jerpbak ’19 and Casalino each tossed four frames. Jerpbak gave up no runs on two hits, and Casalino allowed one on three. Entering the weekend, all three of the Eli hurlers’ ERAs rank in the top 15 in the Ivy League overall and
in conference. Efflandt’s conference ERA currently rests at 1.56, which is the second-best in the league. Offensively, a Yale team whose batting average ranks eighth in the Ivy League is expecting its most difficult competition yet from the Big Green pitchers. The lineup features select members who have posted notable statistics, particularly in the conference season. Labbadia, who leads off, has been a consistent presence in the batter’s box and will look to start something early against the Big Green. The senior boasts a team-leading on-base percentage of 0.360, which she shares with first baseman Lauren Delgadillo ’16. Catcher Camille Weisenbach ’17 holds a conference batting average of 0.342, the team’s highest.
Jerpbak, who holds the highest overall average on the team in addition to her contributions on the mound, said the outcome of the series will depend on a team effort at the plate. “We are just going to focus on getting hits and getting runners on base so we can score early,” Jerpbak said. “We need to capitalize on our hits and any mistakes they make, and as pitchers keep the ball off the plate, so we can get them on our best pitches, which will result in outs.” This weekend’s matchup is the second-to-last conference series for the Bulldogs, who will face Brown the following weekend. The first game on both Saturday and Sunday will start at 12:30 p.m. Contact FLORA LIPSKY at flora.lipsky@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
A slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72.
SUNDAY
High of 72, low of 54.
High of 69, low of 41.
DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
ON CAMPUS FRIDAY, APRIL 22 6:00 PM Student Film Block #2: Narrative Shorts. Join us for the narrative component of the 2016 Yale Student Film Festival followed by a Q&A with directors. Free and open to the public. The screening will include eight assorted short films. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Aud. 3:30 PM Fraught Interactions: How Stereotypes Shape Women’s Experience in STEM and What We Can Do About It. Stanford professor Gregory Walton GRD ’05, who studies practical and evidence based approaches to address disenfranchisement among undergraduate students, will give a talk on this topic. A panel discussion moderated by Nancy Niemi from the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning will follow. Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (225 Prospect St.), Rm. 110.
FRESHMAN PARKING LOT BY MICHAEL HILLIGER
SATURDAY, APRIL 23 7:30 PM Theater Event: Teesri Dhun. Four transgender performers from Pakistan take over Marquand Chapel to share their experiences of being neither man nor woman, in a search for God, love and identity. Through music, dance and storytelling, this documentary theater unfolds narratives of history, separation, desire and celebration as characters jostle for a third space in a polarized gendered world. Marquand Chapel (409 Prospect St.). 8:00 PM “We Wove A Web: A Brontë Play” by Rebecca Brudner ’16. A dance theater piece that tells the story of the lives of the Brontë sisters — Charlotte, Emily and Anne — whose novels changed the course of English literature and shattered society’s expectations of what women writers were capable of. The piece uses language, music and dance to explore the expansive imaginations of these revolutionary women. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.).
QUAIL UNIVERSITY BY LUNA BELLER-TADIAR
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Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Stephanie Addenbrooke 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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LUNA BELLER-TADIAR is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight College. Contact her at luna.beller-tadiar@yale.edu .
202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE APRIL 22, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
CLASSIFIEDS
CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 “For __ had eyes, and chose me”: Othello 4 Utterly failed at 8 With great urgency 14 Gobbler 15 Blue-skinned deity 16 Ferrous sulfate target 17 Fed. financial agency 18 “Metamorphoses” poet 19 How pooches’ smooches are delivered 20 Model T contemporary 21 “The Iliad” subject 22 Goes with 23 Ancient theater props 25 Added result 27 Bellicose deity 28 Pitcher of milk? 29 It may include a model, briefly 30 Pumped item 31 “Now!” 32 Storm consequence 34 French possessive pronoun 37 Priceline options 38 Have a special place for 39 __ work: menial labor 40 Batt. terminal 41 Plastered 42 Amos with eight Grammy nominations 43 “Castle” producer 45 Yuma : Yours :: Toulouse : à ___ 46 Ruination 47 __-dieu 48 Take responsibility for 49 Hair care brand since 1930 50 Pun, sometimes 52 Motor Trend’s 1968 Car of the Year 54 Eggs on toast, perhaps 55 Diverted 56 Dutch export
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57 Desired result 58 Swiss city, to most locals 59 The Taj Mahal, e.g. 60 African bovine 61 Turns out to be 62 Elements in vital statistics 63 Dubious communication method
DOWN 1 Entered angrily 2 Huge holiday film 3 Lining with raised decorations? 4 Window-shop 5 Kilauea sight 6 Mideast leader’s personal CPA? 7 Singles group, e.g.? 8 June honorees 9 Visiting the vet, maybe 10 Suckerfish 11 Insurance for royalty? 12 Light melodies 13 Appreciative shouts 22 Snoopy starting a trip?
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6 5
9
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24 They encourage modeling 26 As yet 32 Word with meal or cake 33 Bygone small car 35 Change overseas, maybe 36 Robber’s demand ... or what to do to solve four long puzzle answers?
9 5 7
6
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39 George Clooney, for one 41 When in Act I Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle 44 Slants 46 Cold War threats 47 Spin docs 50 “Eleni” author Nicholas 51 Perfect place 53 Not that exciting 56 H-like letter
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JM PIOTROWSKI ’19 LOCKS OF LOVE The Yale men’s hockey forward, whose hair was once described by Yale Sports Publicity as “long red flow waving like a flag in the wind,” is putting his mane to good use. Goaltender Patrick Spano ’17 will cut Piotrowski’s hair at Ingalls Rink today for the charity Locks of Love.
CHARLIE COLE ’07 ALUMNUS MAKING WAVES FOR USA Smooth, fast waves. Cole, who rowed for the Yale heavyweight crew during his college career, won gold at the World Rowing Cup I on Sunday while competing on the U.S Men’s Four. The coxless boat has two more World Rowing Cups before the Olympics in August.
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“Coming off a loss always fuels the fire, but we have no time to dwell on this past weekend.” MIKE BONACCI ’16 MEN’S LACROSSE
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
Quick turnaround needed for No. 4 Yale MEN’S LACROSSE
Top teams square off in Hanover BY JACOB MITCHELL STAFF REPORTER Just two weekends and eight games remain in the Ivy League regular season, and the Yale baseball team finds itself tied atop a congested Red Rolfe Division with Dartmouth, a program that has captured eight consecutive divisional titles and won 15 of its past 17 contests against the Bulldogs.
BASEBALL With a pair of doubleheaders between the two first-place
schools on tap for this weekend in New Hampshire, the Elis (13–22– 1, 7–5 Ivy) have a golden opportunity to separate themselves from the field en route to possibly dethroning the Big Green (13–20, 7–5) in pursuit of their first Red Rolfe title since 1995. “This season has definitely had its ups and downs, but it’s exciting to have the opportunity to play meaningful games late in the season,” shortstop Tom O’Neill ’16 said. “We can’t wait to get out there and continue competing.” O’Neill racked up four RBI in SEE BASEBALL PAGE 10
ROBBIE SHORT/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Attackman Ben Reeves ’18 has 29 goals and 25 assists this season, leading Yale in both categories. BY MATTHEW MISTER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After spending three weeks as the nation’s No. 1 team in the USILA Coaches Poll, the previously undefeated Yale men’s lacrosse team fell to No. 4 in both major polls after a 14–12 loss to No. 3 Brown last week-
end. The Bulldogs need to bounce back quickly as they prepare for a Saturday game against No. 6 Albany — a team that threatens to knock Yale even further down the national rankings. Although Albany (9–2, 5–0 American East) fell early in the season to No. 5 Maryland
and No. 8 Syracuse, the Great Danes will come into Reese Stadium having won their last six games. Yale (10–1, 4–1 Ivy) fell to Albany 12–11 last year in a similar battle between two top-10 teams. Last season’s defeat, as well as the fresher memory of last week’s loss to Brown, has the Bulldogs fired
Elis face toughest Ivy test yet
up to face their out-of-conference opponent. “Practice this week has definitely been intense,” midfielder Mike Bonacci ’16 said. “Coming off a loss always fuels the fire, but we have no time to dwell on this past weekend SEE M. LACROSSE PAGE 10
BY KEVIN BENDESKY STAFF REPORTER
This weekend, the Yale softball team will travel to the woods of New Hampshire seeking to remain in contention for the Ivy League North Division title. Doing that, however, will require taking down the Ancient Eight’s only remaining undefeated team.
The Yale women’s lacrosse team embarks on the final leg of its season this weekend with two consecutive home games, beginning Saturday with its game against conference foe No. 14 Penn.
The Bulldogs (13–26–1, 5–7 Ivy) will play four games over two days against the Big Green (24–10, 12–0), the two-time defending Ivy League champion. This series presents the opportunity for Yale to retaliate for a frustrating matchup last spring. The Big Green has swept Yale for the past three seasons, and managed to run-rule the Bulldogs in two of last year’s four contests. This season, even two losses against Dartmouth would officially put the Elis out of contention — yet another motivation for Yale heading into a matchup between David and Goliath. “The team and I are looking forward to some great competition this weekend and upsetting their season,” shortstop Brittany Labbadia ’16 said. “Dartmouth is a very good team, but we know that we can compete with anyone.” The Big Green poses a threat from all parts of the field, leading the league in
WOMEN’S LACROSSE
WEEKEND SCHEDULE
COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS
Dartmouth leads the Ivy League in both runs scored and runs allowed per game in conference play. both runs scored and runs against in Ivy League play. In the pitcher’s circle, Dartmouth owns a 2.82 earned run average overall, with all three pitchers contributing to that impressive mark. Senior Morgan McCalmon, the staff’s ace, has been heating up lately, winning the last two Ivy League Pitcher of the Week honors. McCalmon’s 14 wins are the most of any Ivy pitcher this year. Sophomore Breanna Ethridge, meanwhile, holds a 1.94 ERA, the
FRIDAY
best individual mark in the conference. Though Dartmouth’s arms stand out on their own — the team boasts the lowest overall ERA last season and the second-lowest two seasons ago — they also benefit from extensive run support. In addition to runs scored, the Big Green leads the league in RBIs and on-base percentage in conference play. Two hot-hitting players spearhead the lineup, rank-
M/W Golf at Ivy League Championships M/W Track and Field at Virginia Challenge
SEE SOFTBALL PAGE 10
SATURDAY
The Yale offense has scored 62 runs in Ivy League play, the most of any team in the Red Rolfe Division.
Bulldogs host No. 14 Penn to New Haven
BY FLORA LIPSKY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
SOFTBALL
YALE DAILY NEWS
The Bulldogs (5–8, 2–3 Ivy) will look to dampen the flames of the Quakers’ (10–3, 4–1) hot streak, which has included four straight wins, highlighted by two victories over top-11 teams. Penn’s recent trajectory stands in stark contrast to the Elis’, who are looking to find their own spark as the year winds down, after they lost their past four games. “We have been working really hard all week to fix mistakes from prior games and to get ready for Penn,” captain and defender Kate Walker ’16 said. “I feel that we’re fully prepared to out-hustle and out-fight [Penn] on Saturday.” In order to emerge victorious, Yale will have to limit the crafty playmaking ability of Penn senior attacker Nina Corcoran, who leads the nation in assists and ranks 16th in total points. Penn also has a formidable force in net, in the form of junior Britt Brown. She currently holds the 13th-best save percentage in the nation, saving just over half the shots sent her way, at 50.3 percent. But the team’s greatest strength lies in its depth. Penn has five players with 20 or more points this season. By contrast, Yale has only two, attackers Tess McEvoy ’17 and Hope Hanley ’17. Penn’s depth has
Women’s Crew vs. Radcliffe (Harvard), 8 a.m. Heavyweight Crew vs. Cornell/Princeton, 8:20 a.m. Men’s Lacrosse vs. Albany, 12 p.m. Women’s Lacrosse vs. Penn, 3 p.m. Women’s Sailing vs. Reed Trophy, 9:30 a.m. Women’s Tennis vs. Brown, 12 p.m.
translated into an offense that is tied for second in the conference in goals in Ivy play, a category in which the Bulldogs rank seventh. The Quakers defense is more middle-of-the-road, sitting in fourth, though they are still allowing 1.76 goals less than the Elis. Perhaps more indicative of what to expect from Penn than its stats, though, is its play as of
late. The Quakers have won four in a row, and bookending that streak are wins against a couple of the nation’s premier programs. On April 3, Penn took down No. 8 Northwestern, and this past Wednesday, it bested Ivy rival Princeton, ranked 11th in the country. SEE W. LACROSSE PAGE 10
COURTESY OF YALE ATHLETICS
Midfielder Taryn Gallagher ’18 has scored goals in three of the past five games, and ranks sixth on the team overall in scoring.
Baseball at Dartmouth (DH) Softball at Dartmouth (DH) Lightweight Crew at Dartmouth M/W Golf at Ivy League Championships Coed Sailing at 3 regattas Men’s Tennis at Brown M/W Track and Field at Virginia Challenge
SUNDAY
Women’s Sailing vs. Reed Trophy, 9:30 a.m. Baseball at Dartmouth (DH) Softball at Dartmouth (DH) M/W Golf at Ivy League Championships Coed Sailing at 3 regattas
WEEKEND // FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
CHINA-RAISED, YALE-EDUCATED Qi Xu and Monica Wang delve into the changing demographics of Yale’s Chinese students. //Page B3
DESSERTS
B2
DONALD
B4
DANCERS
B5
HOW TO MAKE A MACARON
RALLYING IN HARTFORD
AERIALS & ARABESQUES
A meditation on dessert-baking to cope with high school stress.
Michelle Liu meets some Connecticutian Trump fans as the primary approaches.
Veena McCoole reviews Yaledancers’ spring show.
// ZISHI LI
PAGE B2
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND VIEWS
A MEAT PANCAKE ZHAO
// BY ALICE ZHAO My mother likes to send me pictures of food. Afternoon, evening and late at night, I’ll check my phone and there’ll be another text or three from her. Sometimes, it’s just a dish she’s ordered at a restaurant — Korean cold noodles, chicken tamales, a fried onion artfully peeled into a flower — but usually it’s her home cooking. Stir-fried green peppers with pork. Soy sauce beef with Napa cabbage. Fried rice with leeks and Chinese sausage. Of course, these are the ones I can describe in English. The truth is, there are many other dishes she sends me whose names are untranslatable. Just the other day, my friend looked over my shoulder and pointed at one of the photographs my mother sent me, a platter of rou bing right from the pan, cut into neat quarters, the dough brown and flaky. “What’s that?” he asked. I paused for a long time. “It’s — well, it’s like a meat pancake,” I finally settled. “I mean — never mind.” A meat pancake. I think back on it now, and it’s laughable, how stupid, how insufficient, how not rou bing those words are. Yet, the funny thing is, there’s this instinct nagging at me even now, this urge to amend, to revise: it’s more like a calzone, really, the crust on the outside, the stuffing on the inside — no, this too is completely wrong. These comparisons are completely wrong. I don’t know how to say it, what a rou bing is in English, but —
I want you to understand. I want you to understand that when my mother sent me that picture, I thought about narrow alleyways in Beijing, crowded little shops that fit only three, four tables at best, half-naked men hunched over plates of steaming food and sweating bottles of cheap beer, the sizzle of grease and the sound of the chef slapping dough against his palm, his hands, his shirt, his face covered in white dust — the air is so hot inside, it makes everything swoon. I want you to understand that when my mother sent me that picture, I thought about my grandparents’ old apartment, fifth story, just a living room, bedroom and kitchen. I’m sitting in a foldable chair and kicking my legs back and forth, I’m 9 or 10 or 12, and the fan is on and blowing hair into my eyes, my grandmother is mixing the filling for the rou bing with chopsticks, the ground meat and the scallions, she pours in soy sauce and scatters in wei jing, her hands are deft and quick and capable — this is her original recipe, after all. Also, I want you to understand this last image: college-aged now, drumming my fingers against the kitchen countertop, waiting, I watch my mother sprinkle dough on her cutting board, the ingredients for the next batch already lined up in front of her in small bowls, ginger, jiu cai, pork, she turns around and lifts the lid from the pan, steam rises up, there’s the pop of oil and a smell rich and salty, she takes her spatula and lifts the rou bing up, slides it onto a plate. Then, there’s the lifting
of a knife, the crunch of crust giving way to metal, metal scraping against ceramic, and she offers one to me. It tastes like home. These unsolicited photographs are more than just text messages and pixels and space on my iPhone. These feelings and memories that well up are sentimental, sentimental sometimes to the point of pain. It’s past midnight, and I find myself scrolling through them, staring at them, imagining the taste of all of these foods upon my tongue, salty or sweet or savory or light or just — good. I complain to her, once in a while. “Why are you doing this to me?” I’ll say in Mandarin, only half-joking. “Don’t you know how hungry I get?” “You can eat them when you come home,” she says. I’m starting to think, then, that my mother has ulterior motives in sending me all of these pictures. It’s a bit conspiratorial, but maybe it’s a not-so-subtle reminder, something along the lines of: You’re growing up, and you have vegan chicken now in the dining halls, and you can eat so many things now that I don’t know how to make, like that one time you went out and you had lobster bisque and seafood paella and caramel flan — but remember this: Rou bing, passed down. You were 5 and 11 and 16 and now almost 20, but remember? It still tastes the same, so come home.
// ALLISON CHEUNG
Contact ALICE ZHAO at alice.zhao@yale.edu .
Oven-struck
BLAU
// BY JESSICA BLAU
My junior year at boarding school, I took up making French macarons in a dorm kitchen used by 40 other girls. Macarons were wholly impractical: the pastel-colored cookies were too difficult to consume before they went stale, too demanding of time and attention, too tiny, too sweet, too finicky. The ingredients had to be folded into each other just so, or else the batter would be too sticky or too wet and they wouldn’t set how they were supposed to. The batter had to be piped uniformly onto cookie sheets and then had to rest for long enough that the cookies would keep their form once baked, but not so long that they’d become too heavy. The oven couldn’t be too hot, or else the tops would blister and crack, but it couldn’t be too cool, either, or they wouldn’t develop a hardenough shell. They seemed to have minds of their own, and even when I got everything perfect, they were so delicate that there was always a chance I’d hold one with a little too much pressure and the shell would collapse, leaving behind a conspicuous crater. *** Macarons were difficult, but I was difficult, too. I had learned to bake the summer before I went away to boarding school. My mother had a new husband, a new baby and a new life that I didn’t quite fit into. I started having trouble sleeping and took to baking in the hours after midnight. I learned to make layer cakes and banana cream pies and chocolate puddings, all by myself in the dead of the night with my mother and my stepfather sleeping 15 feet
above my head. In the morning, my mother would come down and stare confusedly at the sweets that had appeared overnight. Once, she complained that I used all the half-andhalf she used in her coffee. I shrugged and apologized — but what else did she expect me to do when I needed heavy cream, and half-and-half was the closest I could get at 1 a.m.? *** I was used to making things work, and so when problems arose in my dorm kitchen, I was ready. I was unable to find almond meal at the Target in the nearby mall so I made my own by crushing almonds slivers with the edge of a sauce jar until they were no more than powder. I had no mixer so I whisked egg whites by hand, my wrists making tiny circles over and over again until the whites formed firm peaks. I had no sieve, no counter space, no perfectly calibrated oven. I used a spaghetti strainer to sift out too-large clumps of powdered sugar. I left trays of unbaked macarons, skins still setting, on pantry shelves, on kitchen chairs, on top of the refrigerator. I fiddled incessantly with the oven’s temperature gauge. I persisted. The girls on my floor understood my obsession, but only in the way a child understands what it means to be an adult, which is to say: not completely, not really at all. Still, they would sit with me in the dorm kitchen, stooped over their study guides, half-reading, half-talking. Sometimes, they would sit on the floor when there were no available chairs, their backs against a wall and their books propped up on
their knees. Elya would laugh and take pictures of me with flour in my hair and all over my jeans. Nunu would bring music, playing rap songs or alternative hits that I’d never heard of before. And Kirby would sometimes join me, making her own macarons with a grace and ease so unlike my frenzied fervor. Always, they would stay as long as they could, but always, they would eventually leave to do more important things. I had chosen macarons mostly because I had heard how hard they were to make properly. I was 16 and positive that I was an excellent baker. But mostly, I was 16 and panicked. At home, I was surrounded by my parents’ unvoiced pressure to keep my grades up, to make smart choices, to figure out my life. At school, I was surrounded by people who were stressing out over SATs, who were making their college lists, who were planning their futures. I should have been doing the same, but
***
bean salad with whatever herbs I have lying around. I leave my lemon bars in the oven for 10 minutes too long. When a recipe calls for minced garlic, I use the stuff in the jar. I cook for only as long as I have to. I freeze leftovers. I buy paper towels. I think of practical ways to use my time — updating my calendar, getting a head start on next week’s reading, hanging up the clothes piled on my chair. I grow up. I do not panic. Still, as my best friend complains about applying to medical school and the girls I live with talk about the upcoming summer and the coffee shops around me start to fill with pairs on informal interviews, I start to imagine thinly iced layer cakes, lemon bars that haven’t been overcooked and macarons with round, glossy tops.
Now, I roast vegetables. I use a slow cooker and make white
Contact JESSICA BLAU at jessica.blau@yale.edu .
I was oven-struck, hyperfocused on baking to keep the future at bay, just like that first time, when I was newly 14 and couldn’t sleep for fear that if I did, I would miss something in those last three months before I left home for school — the sound of my new baby brother crying, the glow of the sun coming in through the window on the stairwell, my mother telling me good morning, just the two of us in the kitchen, before the baby woke up or her new husband came downstairs. In that moment, all I wanted was to show those stupid, candy-colored cookies that I was in charge, that they would be delicious, that I wouldn’t give up, not until they were perfect.
// BEN KAPLAN
FRIDAY APRIL
22
STORIES WITHOUT BORDERS Cross Campus // 11 a.m.
Match a refugee’s narrative to a place on a borderless map to see how well *you* navigate a world without defined nations.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Kissing on the roof of Harkness.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE B3
WEEKEND CHINA
AFTER
G N I W G
N YU n the fall of 1850, the wideeyed, 22-year-old Yung Wing, class of 1854, arrived at Yale, prepared to embark on his u n d e rg ra d u a te journey at a campus populated by white Protestant males. Born into a poverty-stricken family in southern China, Yung had dropped out of school at age 12 to support his mother and four siblings. Pure coincidence led Yung to America, but a heavy financial burden weighed on the young Chinese Christian. He turned down a full ride offered to him by missionaries, which would have required him to return to China and serve as a missionary himself upon graduation. “A pledge of that character would prevent me from taking advantage of any circumstance or event that might arise in the life of a nation like China, to do her a great service,” Yung recalled in “My College Days,” the fifth chapter of his autobiography, “My Life in China and America.” “To be sure, I was poor, but I would not allow my poverty to gain the upper hand and compel me to barter away my inward
I
FRIDAY APRIL
22
convictions of duty for a temporary mess of pottage.” Overwhelmed with financial and academic pressure, Yung had to “sweat over” studies until midnight every night during his freshman year, which caused his health to deteriorate and eventually led to a one-week leave of absence. Contemporary stereotypes tend to portray Chinese students as better in math, but Yung showed “utter aversion” to the subject, especially differential and integral calculus, which he “abhorred and detested.” In fact, Yung performed so poorly in math that he feared Yale would dismiss him. Much to Yung’s relief, his talent in English earned him several top prizes in composition and membership in Brothers in Unity, one of the two campus debating societies. He also pledged and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Yung graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Yale in 1854, making him the first Chinese student to receive a degree from an American college. He later organized the Chinese Educational Mission with the Qing government and devoted his life to bringing more Chinese internationals to American classrooms and lecture halls. While both Yale and China have undergone rapid changes since
G& A WAN C I N O M
//
Yu n g was an undergraduate, his legacy is carried on by generations of Chinese internationals who have crossed the Pacific and stepped onto Yale’s campus ever since. How has the demographic changed over past decades? How are Chinese Yalies today similar to — or different from — those who came before them? THE GOLDEN GENERATION?
Chinese international students in the United States are no strangers to media scrutiny, especially over the past few years, as China’s increasing wealth makes studying abroad a viable option among many middle-income Chinese households. But with greater visibility comes greater controversy. A March 2016 article in The Wall Street Journal, titled “Heavy Recruitment of Chinese Students Sows Discord on U.S. Campuses,” discussed the struggles of “made-in-China” students experiencing cultural and language gaps. According to a 2015 report by the Institute of International Education, Chinese students accounted for 31.2 percent of all international students in the United States. The makeup of Chinese international students has shifted not only in number, but also in wealth. A New Yorker article titled “The Golden Generation”
YALE INTERCULTURAL COLLOQUIUM
went viral in February, detailing the extravagant lives led by Chinese students who are sent to America by their uber-rich parents. The wealthy second generation — children of the Chinese “nouveau riche” — is referred to as “fuerdai” in Chinese and has been a sore point among the Chinese public. The word carries a negative connotation, implying mindless consumption and eliciting resentment toward the wealthy few. While the phenomenon was initially restricted to China, it began to spread to American campuses as “fuerdai” students headed to the West for college. In a December 2015 op-ed in the Columbia Daily Spectator, Columbia undergraduate Jasmine Bernstein Yin described her experience with the changing image of Chinese students in America. The controversial article opened with a statement that discussed many Americans’ impression of Chinese in the country, and explained how, despite their glamorous appearance, the “Chinese elite” feel lonely deep inside. “Our boarding-school backgrounds, our posh accents, our stylish outfits — in my experience, American students are often astonished by us Chinese internationals,” the column began. Enclave, extravagance, exclusion — do these perceptions apply to the small group of Chinese internationals at Yale too? Perspectives from current students
a n d alumni of Yale’s Chinese community suggest a more diverse story. DIVERSITY WITHIN DIVERSITY
The Chinese Undergraduate Students at Yale is a student organization that serves as a home away from home for many Chinese students on campus. It provides a space for meeting other Chinese undergraduates, socializing and making friends who share the same cultural background. “CUSY remains a very central community for Chinese students just because of how much we share in common,” said Scarlett Zuo ’16, a history major from Beijing who was the former vice president of CUSY. “For me, CUSY is special because even though I have friends from the United States and other parts of the world, they won’t necessarily understand all the things I feel as a Chinese. CUSY [members] are the only people who are potentially capable of fully understanding who I am.” The small size of the Chinese student population on campus makes CUSY a tight-knit community. According to 2015–16 CUSY President Andi Wang ’17, a staff reporter for the News, the organization has around 60 total members every year, with roughly 15 Chinese students in each class. Yale has admitted 16 Chinese students to the class of 2020, according to a list of students SEE CHINA PAGE B8
WKND RECOMMENDS:
Asian American Cultural Center // 2 p.m. Ethnic Studies scholars will present their work at this first annual event. Academia meets activism.
QI XU
Rock climbing up East Rock.
PAGE B4
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND THE
DONALD
MAKE HARTFORD GREAT AGAIN // BY MICHELLE LIU
Last Friday afternoon I stopped briefly on Cross Campus at a table set up by Yale Students for Bernie, who refused to speak to me on the record but did urge me to register to vote. I demurred. Three hours later I found myself one of 7,000 at a Donald Trump rally. “It was weird but boring,” I later told friends, who asked: “But was it different from normal political rallies?” Having never attended any others, I didn’t know. (As the graduate of a large public high school in Texas, I have been to pep rallies, which feature better music and younger audiences.) This rally, held at the Connecticut Convention Center in downtown Hartford, was Trump’s first appearance as a candidate in the state. Since his first, fiery stump speech, his team has planned two more stops in advance of next Tuesday’s primary — he’s slated to appear in Waterbury and Bridgeport Saturday, if you’re interested. If you go, my suitemate might also prepare you with physical safety tips. When I told her about my plans to attend the rally, she informed me to avoid bone-to-bone contact should I end up in a physical altercation. “Bone to soft spot,” she instructed, meaning I should hit a groin with my knee, but not punch someone in the nose with a closed fist. As it turns out, the penned-off area for the press limits the likelihood of such possibilities. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That Friday afternoon, another News reporter and I found our reserved Zipcar outside of Payne Whitney Gym, dutifully beeping as I repeatedly hit the horn button on my Zipcar app. We arrived three hours early. The sun was still out, and tables ringed the front of the convention center, arrayed with Trump gear. (You know: “Make America Great Again” hats, “Make America Great Again” sweatshirts, “Make America Great Again” toe socks.) A handful of protesters holding signs demeaning the size of Trump’s hands and ones with slogans such as “Hate won’t make us great!!” faced the vendors. I approached one of the protestors. The reporter accompanying me veered off. Hamden resident Michael Alborino told me he was here to demonstrate the existence of an opposition group to Trump and “all this hate.” Alborino cited fear as the other driving emotion in the situation — first-time voters and
people who don’t know a lot about the political process are especially afraid of the current political climate, he said. “People are afraid of what’s going on right now,” he told me. “They want something different. I can’t blame them for wanting something different. But somebody who’s never held office?!” *** Closer to the entrance, we found August Wolf — described on his website as “a father of four, Olympian, business leader and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate” — soliciting rally attendees, accompanied by his press secretary (a former Ben Carson ’73 campaign hire) and campaign manager. Wolf, who is seeking the Republican nomination for current Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s LAW ’73 seat, towered over me as I asked him about his presence at the rally. “The country has changed a fair bit,” he told me. “Our party, the Republican Party, isn’t dealing with that in the right way in including people. They did a terrible job including folks like you [young people] in dialogue and thinking about marketbased solutions to issues,” he said. Wolf considers Trump a “genius,” he said, although he wouldn’t tell me who he was voting for in the primary. The former Olympian shot putter is taking some tips from Trump in his Senate run. “First and foremost, my opponent, Dick Blumenthal — I’m referring to as Lyin’ Little Dick. Okay?” Wolf said. “That’s a very apt description of him. Not because he’s physically little, which he is, but because he plays small ball. He doesn’t play in the Big Leagues.” Inside the convention center, a crowd fringed around the stage area. People also lined the walls, charging their phones, or so I assumed until I approached and found that most of them were simply weary and waiting, using the wall as a spot to lean on. “All you young kids with those Apples,” said Bobbie Padegimas, gesturing toward my phone. “Let’s force Apple to make those iPhones in America.” Padegimas, leaning against the convention center wall, told me she was a nurse living in Windsor Locks (and that she refuses to own an iPhone until it is made in the United States). This wasn’t
her first rodeo — she had attended another Trump event in Massachusetts. She likes Trump because he’s a “non-politician” who is all business, she said. Padegimas and the woman next to her began to vigorously discuss the need for manufacturing jobs in the United States. “He can bring jobs back here even for the immigrants!” exclaimed Sonia Burns, the woman next to Padegimas. “I think Donald Trump represents the American dream,” Padegimas added. “I think America is one of the few places that, given the opportunity, you can go places. ‘The Voice,’ ‘American Idol’ — things like that are representative of what can happen to you, being in the right place in the right time in America. I don’t know if any other country offers you that.” I inquired about their feelings on Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. “Oh my god, I think she is amazing!” Padegimas said. “What impresses me about her?” Burns pondered. “She had a baby and she had the hospital clothes everybody wears.” “She didn’t close off a wing of a hospital like Beyoncé and her baby,” Padegimas agreed. “Or the Kardashians. And the baby was wrapped in the same blankets that every baby is wrapped in,” Burns concluded. “There was no difference.” “As a matter of fact, his children are far more well-spoken than he is,” Padegimas said, turning to me. “He is not polished. That’s one of the things I like about him.” *** I drifted around the convention center, holding my press badge against my notebook in case someone wanted to herd me back into the press pen, where the legitimates (think CNN, The New York Times) had cameras and laptops out. I found a handful of 20-somethings who said they were undecided on their candidate of choice. One man asked if I was a Bernie supporter. As it turns out, three hours is a lot of time to fill. I began to take note of slogans, the kind printed on generic Hanes cotton T-shirts. Also the kind 14-year-old boys at my high school would have probably been into but would have gotten reprimanded for wearing. “HILLARY SUCKS, BUT NOT LIKE MONICA” (next to cutouts of Hillary C l i n t o n ’s LAW ’73 and
Monica Lewinsky’s faces). “FUCK OFF WE’RE FULL” (inside a silhouette of the continental United States). “SEX IS MY CARDIO” (???). Earlier, Padegimas had listed everything she anticipated out of the Trump rally: “I expect the crowd to get very loud when Trump takes the stage. I think that Donald Trump’s going to come out, and he’s going to tell us he’s going to make America great again, and he’ll talk about building his wall.” The crowd, growing anxious, intermittently chanted “build a wall” and “Donald Trump.” When the candidate himself finally appeared, I was already in the press pen, located at the very back, alongside the designated seating for the disabled/elderly. Everyone began to take photos. The rally checked off everything on Padegimas’ list. The crowd got loud, Trump said he’d make America great again, then he talked about solving a heroin epidemic by building a wall. Here’s the thing: in real life, if you’re at the back of the room, a Trump rally is a subdued matter. Not that the man himself is subdued, but rather, I couldn’t help but feel that I had heard (or read) it all before. Nonetheless, here are some things he said, just to prove that I didn’t drive out to Hartford for nothing: 1. “Trump rallies are safe.” The cops did remove a handful of protesters, who were outed/identified by nearby attendees holding up their Trump posters and chanting “Trump” to alert security. 2. “There is nothing more fun than a Trump rally.” 3. The North American Free Trade Agreement has killed Connecticut. Connecticut needs jobs. 4. Donald Trump has lived in Connecticut, and has many friends in Connecticut. I stepped outside after the brief half hour, into twilight. The 20 or so protesters I found outside at 4 p.m. had ballooned into hundreds, effectively stymieing the flow of ralliers out of the convention center. The two sets of crowds, facing each other, volleyed chants back and forth: “Build a wall.” “Black lives matter.” Inside the hotel attached to the convention center, wedding guests mingled. We found a handful of Yale students who told us that security had confiscated their flasks and that they were undercover for another, lesser campus publication. A man stood calmly in the middle of the crowds, vaping. When I looked at the photos on my phone later, the distance rendered Trump a blurry,
glowing figure behind the podium, his finer features obscured by the spotlight. He could have been anyone. *** Back on campus, I started looking for Trump supporters, wondering whether they had attended the rally. It was more difficult than I anticipated. Unlike Yale Students for Hillary, or the Sanders supporters I talked to, there is no public campus network for Trump support. Yale’s most prominent Trump supporter, Karl Notturno ’17, who has posted frequently in defense of Trump on the Overheard at Yale Facebook group, agreed to speak with me, but never called me at our scheduled interview time. I will call the sole talkative Trump supporter I found at Yale “W.” He agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, and said he often keeps his support for Trump hidden at school out of worry that it would ruin his relationships at Yale. “The last thing I want is to stir up a conflict on campus because of a political issue,” W told me, referring to a March incident at Emory University in which chalked messages in support of Trump spurred campus protests. W, who considers himself socially centrist and fiscally conservative, feels that Trump has been misconstrued in the media as more socially conservative than he is. W doesn’t think Trump supporters at Yale are representative of Trump supporters as a whole, though. “I feel like a lot of Trump supporters in America are Trump supporters because they’re not informed — not a knock on Trump, he’s loudest candidate by far, definitely most covered by media,” W said. “If you’re Republican, and if you don’t know who to vote for, you’re most likely going to vote for Trump. It helps that he’s the front-runner.” If he could tell non-Trump supporters anything, W would encourage them to be more open-minded, he tells me. “Most Republicans and Trump supporters on campus I talk to really have no problem with people voting on the other side of the bipartisan system, and I feel like that is not a sentiment that is felt [across the aisle],” W said. In the midst of our conversation, a friend in the room interrupted to announce that Trump had won the New York primary. “Fuck yeah,” W said. Contact MICHELLE LIU at michelle.liu@yale.edu .
// MICHELLE LIU
FRIDAY APRIL
22
YALE PHOTO SOCIETY EXHIBITION OF STUDENT WORK
WKND RECOMMENDS:
Book Trader Cafe // 7 p.m.
Only for the hippest of the hip.
Midday makeout in the sad little courtyards outside Bass.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE B5
WEEKEND ARTS
DOWNTRODDEN DOWN CHAPEL // BY ANDREW STAUTZ Currently on display at the Giampietro Gallery — that tiny storefront stuck between Starbucks and Panera, on the south side of Chapel Street just east of High — is “Common-Ground,” an exhibition that pairs folk art sculptures with paintings by the contemporary American artist Farrell Brickhouse. Inside, there’s not room for more than a dozen or so paintings, each of which hangs next to an anonymously produced folk art sculpture. The exhibition’s premise seems to be that Brickhouse, a trained, New York-based “insider” artist, nonetheless has strong connections to the work of untrained, often anonymous “folk”
artists. There’s some historical truth to that assertion. Brickhouse might be considered part of the Neo-Expressionist movement that dominated the 1980s, when his career began. NeoExpressionism was defined by a reaction against the prior decade’s preoccupation with minimalist and conceptual art and included a partial return to figurative painting. However, the technical considerations of form, perspective, brushwork, line and color are subjugated to the artist’s personal narrative and emotional state. As a result, a formally trained Neo-Expressionist’s art often carries the same raw and messy look of the dabblings of an anonymous amateur.
// NGAN VU
Brickhouse’s paintings in “Common-Ground” were all completed in the past few years and demonstrate a thorough stylistic consistency. Foremost in this style is the unstinting use of paint. Thick, textured globs of the stuff hang off each of the canvases. The dominant color palette is best described as old chewing gum. Washed-out and unsaturated pinks, greens and yellows dominate the exhibition. Brickhouse’s scenes depict acrobats, dancers and strongmen — a Depression-era world of gaudy carnivals and tawdry travelling fairs. The colors must once have been bright, but they were cheap, and empty, and have dissolved into mud and sadness. The accompanying folk art shares in this nostalgia for a home that was never any good to begin with. These “sculptures” are shooting gallery targets, a set of puppets, a sex toy and what seems to have been a weather vane. All are (perhaps needless to say) clumsy, unrefined, even deranged in the particular way dolls and clowns can be. This exhibit’s simple and unrelenting ugliness is itself disheartening. I’m unsure if this sadness is deliberate. “Double Dutch 3” is a small canvas depicting a girl jumping rope. She is a tiny, green-dressed figure fallen, crimescene style, against a flat background of muddy pink. A whitish circle smudged out of the pink stands in for the twirling ropes. Imagine a girl in a green dress
jumping rope — the sunny day, the crisp contrast of light and shade, the vibrant colors, the depth of field, the boundless motion. Reducing that scene in paint to one plane of muddy geometric approximations indicates a darkness of vision that is at least peculiar, at most disturbing. Standing beneath this painting is a cast-iron clown, dressed in vaguely Asiatic robes, that was once a shooting gallery target: America’s own down-trodden Pierrot Lunaire. In “The Rescue,” a blue-skinned woman wearing a red glitter leotard carries a slate-gray stickman in her arms. What is the nature of this rescue? Has he fallen from a great height? Was he in danger of drowning? Or was the rescue more abstract: the circus dancer, with her ready eroticism, has saved the stifled bourgeois man from a lifetime of vacuous materialism with her even cheaper promises of sex and postlapsarian nostalgia? Tell me, America, why are you so sad? There never was an Eden — not for you. Perhaps the entire emotional range elicited in “Common-Ground” is encapsulated in “Studio Sleeper II.” Against a purple-gray wall, several blurry brown paintings hang. In front, a man lies doubled over in despair on a gallery bench. Contact ANDREW STAUTZ at andrew.stautz@yale.edu .
Small World, after all? // BY GRIFFIN BROWN The inhabitants of Gideon Broshy’s ’17 “Small Worlds” weren’t as affable as one might expect. In fact, each felt like a big fish swimming about in a big sea, generally oblivious to the activities of the others. Spatially speaking, their world wasn’t large; even though Broshy cleared out the Becton Center’s Ground Café of its typical accoutrements — tables, chairs, baristas, STEM majors — the room filled up pretty quickly. Sevenchannel audio circumscribed the space, pushing the participants every which way, while a claustrophobic video of travelers coursing through Grand Central seemed to climb up the walls of the café.
The work’s symbolic dimension, on the other hand, was enormous: Reverberations of metropolitan hustle could be heard and felt, and whatever traces of the small town, genial aesthetic that the installation’s title might have suggested were entirely eschewed. Broshy’s dancers moved with focused independence, as they each had their own things to attend to. They weren’t living in small worlds; they were small worlds moving in an expansive universe. Gideon Broshy is a senior double majoring in music and sociology, and “Small Worlds” is his thesis in music. In my opinion, it could satisfy either concentration. Bro-
shy is interested in “microhistories,” the individual existences that simultaneously constitute and cut through the chaos of anonymity endemic to urban spaces like subway hubs and crowded blocks. “Small Worlds” invites the viewer into these settings and urges him or her to contemplate these hidden personal existences, to recognize and push past the pitter-patter of everyday life. Broshy’s installation doesn’t make this easy, though. The seven speakers around the perimeter of the room transmit sounds — or interpretations — of hectic urban babble: footsteps, subway cars, inarticulate voices, whooshing clothes, static scurry-
ing and futuristic musique concrète. Unsurprisingly, these are the dominant figures of the sonic environment; in trying to follow one participant throughout the room, the collective diffusion of the entire group usurps your attention. To represent the distinct existences living beneath the surface of this cacophonous social mass, Broshy sends quotidian sounds — an alarm clock, a shower turning on and so on, culminating in the intimate vibrations of any person’s nighttime routine — through directional speakers that face the ceiling. Dozens of faces pass your gaze, and you struggle to discern individual motivation
in the context of such a familiar, impersonal crowd. As the installation progressed to its acme, Broshy’s seven-channel soundtrack started to coalesce, and the collective independence that had thus far defined the constituents slowly transformed into a dynamic, singular consciousness. All of a sudden, the audio channeled through the perimeter lost its distortion, and beautiful chords of an unremitting timbre began to fill the room. Every one of the seven speakers received a signal of a pitch-randomized saw wave; the notes changed at arbitrary moments, but they never diverged from whatever the overall
sonority was at a given time. Broshy’s movers — dancers, really — followed suit, morphing into an agglomerated blob that pushed throughout the room. Like the fragile components of each harmony, the dancers still moved at their own pace, but their individual goals were subordinated to the collective effervescence of the literal mass they composed. It was a period of sublime planetary alignment. Eventually, the worlds fell back into their discrete orbits; but for a time those bodies acted as one. Contact GRIFFIN BROWN at griffin.brown@yale.edu .
“Can I Marry Yaledancers?” // BY VEENA MCCOOLE
Twice a year, Yalies of all sorts — from underground theater to the top of Science Hill — pack themselves into the ECA Theater on 55 Audubon St. in anticipation of some of Yale’s most accomplished dancers. The company boasts an impressive proportion of male dancers — five in a cast of 31 — perhaps the highest ratio in all of Yale’s dance groups. These dancers exhibit a commendable diversity of style but are uniform in caliber. For example, in one dance, Brandon Rabaria ’19 holds and twirls another dancer in the air; in another, he springs off his arms and catapults over a chair. The abundance of talent couldn’t be more obvious, but what is most remarkable is the dancers’ ability to reinvent themselves in seconds; Yaledancers has nailed the art of the backstage quick-change. Luyi Chen ’18 extended her legs in a controlled show of flexibility before re-emerging center stage in a sultry hip-hop piece, her hair still pulled back like a classical dancer’s. The program, featuring a total of 21 pieces, ticks all the boxes: graceful duets, adrenaline-pumping
hip-hop numbers, elegant ensembles to heart-swelling music and jaw-dropping aerial spectacles that are at once terrifying and enthralling to witness. The opening item is electric in every sense of the word; metallic crop tops shimmer as five dancers isolate their limbs with perfect, robotic precision. Their incisive, unapologetic movements and piercing synchronization make them feasible candidates for Beyoncé’s troupe of backup dancers. The lyricless song didn’t leave the item feeling incomplete; the dancers’ presence flooded the stage and dominated the soundtrack. Indeed, Yaledancers has a way with not only dance but also music. They transform a song that you bop your head to on a car ride into the rhythmic backbone of truly beautiful choreography. The second item, “My All,” choreographed by Monica Tuñez ’19, is as uplifting and as inspirational as it gets. The dancers wear regular clothing, and look as if they’ve just strolled from the street to the stage to execute this heartfelt number. Music selections in general sounded fresh and free from
clichéd, overplayed tracks. A humorous piece follows: A nostalgic duet entitled “An Almost Modern Throwback,” fueled by charisma and plenty of high-kicks, features colorful mismatched costumes. The choreographers interpret the lyrics literally in a refreshingly relaxed, carefree way. The best part? The end, when two cameras emerge and the dancers took selfies with the audience, finishing the piece in an actual flash. Yaledancers’ shows typically incorporate too vast a range of genres, music and choreography to warrant the use of themes for their seasonal performances. But why condense such a glorious overspill of talent into a thematic category? Each number — especially the duets and the contemporary pieces — tells a story of its own, be it a carnal chase characterized by changing roles of domination or an aching love affair whirling in polarized emotions. Act two opens in a series of floral dresses, joyful tableaux and building music that hits right in the feels as Eliza Dach ’17, Kaylyn Williams ’17 and Sabine Decatur ’18
welcome the audience back with an elated dance, “Merry of Soul She Sailed,” set to “Outlander” by Bear McCreary. Then, illuminated by spotlight, Gracie White ’16 and Dach swing nimbly from a thin hoop hanging in midair. The entire audience is awed, and a little frightened. White survived her first aerial solo, aptly entitled “Hold Your Breath and Count to Ten,” in which she expertly threads long blue silks around her arms and torso, allowing her body to instantly fall four feet into a perfect arabesque. “Be careful!” screeched an audience member. It is impossible to maintain composure when two people are swinging their bodies through each others’ legs, or balancing precariously with nothing touching the rounded surface except their backs. Trick after trick followed until the music ended, concluding an incredible display of strength, stamina and flexibility. Back on the ground, Kellyanna Polk ’16 demonstrates that playing tambourines with hands is overrated. In her elegant restaging of the Bolshoi Ballet’s Esmeralda Variation, Polk dons a classical tutu and
provides the show with an indispensable dose of pure, classical ballet. Somehow she manages to keep pace with the accelerating music, hitting the tambourine first with her hands, then with her feet in a high-kick, and then behind her back and on her shoulder. Comments overheard from outside the theater after the show include “can I marry Yaledancers?”, “does my body even have a purpose?” and “I’m literally sweating that was so good.” Go see the Yaledancers Spring Show and realize for yourself why your ticket is worth considerably more than $5. Contact VEENA MCCOOLE at
veena. mccoole@ yale.edu .
// MATTHEW LEIFHEIT
FRIDAY APRIL
22
THEATER OF THE AB“WORD” LC 102 // 8 p.m.
Go if finals have you in a state of major angst. “Tickets are $3 but the feels are priceless,” reads the website.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Reading this issue of WKND on top of the YDN building.
PARTS OF PAGE B6
WEEKEND MAD
SPEECH
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
LIBS
PARTS OF
// WKND
Tap Night: Welcome new taps — we’re so excited to
[transitive verb] you. Please acquire and
have you as the newest class of [noun] and
wear a [item of clothing] for tap night.
SPEECH PARTS OF SPEECH
Your Frenemy’s Summer Plans:
[noun]. For tap night, you’ll need to report
Note that initiation rituals will involve
to [location in Connecticut] by 5
copious [alcoholic beverage], [illegal sub-
p.m. Don’t be late, or the ghost of
stance] and [sex toy]. Throughout the
[slave-owning Yale found-
night you may detect latent hints of [prej-
ing father] will
Tap Night:
udice] and [prejudice]
Section Asshole Decides to Comment: descend and
— that’s completely [positive adjective]. It
// WKND
Your Frenemy’s Summer Plans:
helps make our society as [adjective] as it is! See you soon and remember: once you [verb] us, you can never
Salovey the Sage:
This may be a totally irrelevant and [obnoxious synonym
PARTS OF PARTS OF
SPEECH SPEECH // WKND // WKND
for useless] comment but I was educated at [New England prep school], so I’m confident every word that drops from my mouth is verbal [noun], and I’m going to talk for the
Salovey the Sage:
next 10 [unit of time]. When I first read this text in [ele-
Your Frenemy’s Summer Plans: Section Asshole Decides to Comment:
mentary school year] I only paid attention to the [kind
// CHAI RIN KIM
of alcohol] and the [misogynistic sex acts] in the second book. It was so childish of me, but I think it really speaks to the [literary theme] that’s palpable to any reader. Now that I’m revisiting the text again I’m really fascinated by the [obscure metrical jargon]; it shows how the author is
Salovey the Sage:
looking back towards [pre-1800 white male poet]. As Foucault famously said, [David Foster Wallace quote].
Last week, Marta and I visited [obscure city] to visit with the [plural noun], [plural noun] and [plural noun] who generously donate their [plural noun] to further Yale’s educational mission. We loved tasting the [gross
Your Frenemy’s Summer Plans: Your Frenemy’s Summer Plans: Section Asshole Decides toAsshole Comment: Section Decides to Comment:
// CHAI RIN KIM
// WKND
Tap Night:
Section Asshole Decides to Comment:
[verb].
Tap Night: Tap Night:
PAGE B7
food] our hosts offered and seeing the [tourist attraction] nearby. But mostly we relished the opportunity to rehash the [recent Yale scandal] with those we met. We
I’m glad you asked. I’ll probably
assured everyone that Yalies would
[verb] around the city for a while before
continue to [verb], [verb] and [verb]
I start my internship at [proper noun]
throughout their college careers.
and [proper noun] in [foreign capital].
After all, your exceptional [attribute]
They’re a [finance buzzword] firm that
is what makes
does [adjective] consulting, but it’s really
Ya l e
such a [adjec-
meaningful and [adjective] work. I got
tive] place. Now
Salovey the Sage: Salovey the Sage:
hooked up with it through my dad’s [dis-
that we’re back
tant family member]; he’s on the exec-
on campus, I’ve
utive board. I’ll probably get to make a
been reflecting
few trips to [exotic locale], hopefully via
on [noun] and its
company [method of transportation].
relevance to the
When I’m done with that, I’ll head up to
Yale community. How can
my family’s [dwelling-place] in [WASP-
we continue to incorporate [noun] into
y summer hangout]. Then I’ll just have
our daily lives?
a chance to [verb] with the fam and play
[whack email sign-off], Peter Salovey
[sport] and do some [bougie exercise] by the [body of water]. It’ll be a good chance to spiritually [verb] before the beginning of school.
// CHAI RIN KIM
FRIDAY APRIL
22–4
JAZZ FESTIVAL
YUAG, Saybrook Underbrook // all day Don your fave beret & get together with some cool cats.
WKND RECOMMENDS:
FRIDAY APRIL
Vacationing in the TD courtyard.
22–4
YALE STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL
Whitney Humanities Center // All Day BYOP(opcorn).
WKND RECOMMENDS: Nude tanning on Booktrader’s patio.
PAGE B8
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND CHINA
D I V E RS I T Y O N FO R E I G N S O I L CHINA FROM PAGE B3
that the Admissions Office shared with CUSY, Wang said. Yale inevitably loses a few prospective students to other schools every year, Wang said, but the average number of 12 to 15 students per class has remained stable for the past few years. Leah Phinney ’04, assistant director of undergraduate admissions who covers mainland China and other regions in Asia, deferred all questions to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan. Quinlan did not return requests for comment as of Thursday night. Wang, Zuo and other CUSY upperclassmen interviewed agreed that while CUSY continues to be a welcoming and cherished community among Chinese undergraduates, the increasing diversity of backgrounds and interests of each incoming class has led the younger students to seek out other communities and extracurricular pursuits. “In the past, Yale [recruited] heavily from Beijing and Shanghai. But I think starting from our year or the year after us, Yale has recruited many more kids from other cities,” Wang said. “It has become really diverse. That kind of synchronizes with the diversity of academic interests.” Wang added that there are now students from Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Jiujiang, Jiuquan, Shenyang and other locales in China that are not as well-known internationally as Beijing and Shanghai. Qianyi Qin ’17 also noted the increasing geographical diversity among Chinese students at Yale. She added that the change came after economic development in non-“top tier” cities. She maintained, moreover, that studying at Yale should not be a privilege solely for students from large cities. A student from Shanghai herself, Qin said her knowledge of China only covers the “tip of the iceberg.” Socioeconomic structures in China differ from city to city, and having a variety of Chinese students at Yale will broaden other Yalies’ understanding of the complexity of modern China, Qin suggested. Besides geographical diversity, academic interests among Chinese students have also expanded beyond traditionally popular subjects such as mathematics and economics. Economics remains a popular major among Chinese students, Wang said, but his class of Chinese internationals also includes art, architecture, history and science majors. “When I first came here, CUSY was a really tight community,” said Christina Zhang ’17, former vice president of CUSY. “People would eat with each other regularly. They even had an [economics study] group — people took classes together and did homework together. From my year onward, however, people are spreading out their interests and have more friends outside [of CUSY].”
SATURDAY APRIL
23
Zhang added that CUSY is distinct from her other activities on campus. She described it as a place where Chinese students feel “comfortable” and come together to help and influence each other. For example, Zhang noted that she came to Yale as a biology major but was introduced to architecture through an upperclassman in CUSY. Zhang has since declared her major in architecture. COUNTERING MEDIA PORTRAYALS Because of the increasing geographical and academic diversity among Chinese internationals, many interviewed said the heterogeneous community does not fit under one common banner, contrary to what mainstream media might suggest. Amy Cheng ’19, a staff reporter for the News, said she hasn’t encountered any instances of Chinese students forming selfcontained groups at Yale. With a total of about 60 Chinese undergraduates on campus dispersed across 12 residential colleges, Yale simply does not have a community of Chinese students sizable enough for them to “form a flock.” Haichuan Luo ’15, who transferred from Connecticut College to Yale after his sophomore year and is currently a first-year student at Duke Law School, said he was not surprised by the narrative of insularity framed in major national publications, as people generally tend to bond with those from similar backgrounds — particularly when they are in a foreign setting away from home. Indeed, Luo said, he had observed such a phenomenon at Connecticut College, but not at Yale. Shuyu Song ’19, a staff reporter for the News, said the relatively small number of Chinese students has prevented the formation of any potential Chinese student enclaves on campus. She added that every Chinese student she knows at Yale has his or her own friend circle comprised of both Chinese and non-Chinese students. Although Chinese students at Yale hail from a myriad of backgrounds ranging from business elites to suburban working class families, none interviewed said the profligate lifestyle led by the Chinese “fuerdai,” as depicted in national media, plays out at Yale. Yifu Dong ’17, a student from China, said the image painted by Yin in her op-ed for the Columbia Spectator is “ridiculous” and does not apply to Chinese undergraduates at Yale. “I don’t think the description fits anywhere,” Wang said, echoing Dong’s sentiment regarding the Spectator op-ed. “I think the author just wants to attract attention. I don’t think it’s anywhere near accurate.” But even if such a phenomenon may not exist at Yale, Qin said she understands why it might
A DIFFERENT DRUM GALA Old Campus // 3 p.m.
Bust a move, break a leg, etc etc etc.
occur elsewhere. Away from home and from parental control, wealthy Chinese students in America have free rein over financial decisions, Qin said. However, she warned against making sweeping statements about Chinese internationals at U.S. colleges. “Any sensible person will know that there are different Chinese students. There is no homogenous Chinese face,” Qin said. Moreover, Qin said she does not understand why there is “such great fuss” about wealthy Chinese students in America. They are free to do whatever they want, as long as they do not harm other people, she added. “What makes Yale’s Chinese students different is that [Yale’s] philosophy for recruitment is different,” Dong said. “The state schools want [Chinese] money, because the Chinese students are paying full tuition. Yale doesn’t need our money, and they can be thoughtful in the selection process. The kids they take — most of them fit in really well.” ASSIMILATING INTO AMERICAN CULTURE Zhang’s dream after graduation is to work at a nongovernmental organization that focuses on humanitarian architecture. She hopes to travel around the world, especially to developing countries where she can make a difference with her work. Zhang said she might consider returning to China later on in life, but only after she gains an international perspective first. For Zhang, assimilation into unfamiliar cultures comes easily as part of her own personal development. “I think assimilation is a thing that happens naturally. Architecture is a very international field, and I don’t specifically try to stick with either Chinese or American people,” Zhang said. “I make friends in the field I’m interested in, and the friendships happen naturally.” Cheng said adapting to the Yale environment was not difficult because of her prior experience of living in the United States from age 10 to 12. She added that her exposure to Western culture and values at a young age familiarized her with ideas that might otherwise have sounded foreign. Michael Gu ’17 said the nature of assimilation depends on a Chinese student’s personal preference. Some Chinese students at Yale are far more aware of their roots and of Chinese culture and history, Gu said, and for them, it is natural to feel more connected to China. Individual friendships also matter, Gu added. While Gu has connected well with other CUSY members, he has also found meaningful friendships outside of the Chinese community, such as in his fraternity, Chi Psi. Gu, who studied in the U.S.
through an exchange program for a year in high school, said America has been part of his “transformative years.” Since coming to Yale, Gu said, he has been able learn more about not only American culture but also about China from an American perspective. “It’s a paradox,” Gu said. “On the one hand, the experience provides you with an opportunity to assimilate. But on the other hand, it also gives you a chance to selfreflect and be more aware of your own culture.” Wang said Chinese students in general have done “an increasingly good job” at assimilating. Like Gu, however, he added that assimilation ultimately depends on each individual’s goal. For instance, Wang said he came to America because of the promise of a better education, and assimilating into American culture was not a top priority for him. “I really do not go out of my way to assimilate, but the part I can appreciate, I appreciate,” Wang said, adding that he is proud of being Chinese. “I know why I’m here, and it’s not for becoming American.” Wang said he might stay in the U.S. for graduate school after Yale, but his eventual plan is to return to China. Zuo said she has imagined what her life would be like if she stayed in China for college. In the end, Zuo explained, Yale is an American college, and attending Yale means overcoming cultural shocks and barriers. Like Wang, Zuo is proud of her Chinese identity and plans to head back home in the future. “I still feel very Chinese, and I don’t want to become an American. Not because I can’t adapt to the customs here — I have a lot of friends and feel happy living here, but ultimately there is another aspect of my identity that is distinctly Chinese and perhaps can only be understood by other Chinese,” Zuo said. “That’s why I feel CUSY is so precious.” Zuo said she feels a sense of responsibility to give back to her country, its culture and its people. Still, Zuo acknowledged that not every Chinese student thinks in this mindset, and she noted that the decision to stay or return can be a difficult one. In comparison to Yung Wing’s days at Yale, Zuo said the landscape of Chinese internationals today tells a vastly different story. “Yung Wing’s experience is so different from ours. He was the initiating force behind the Qing government’s program [to bring Chinese students to American colleges], but it was a failure at the end, much to his dismay. Most of those kids did not want to go back to China,” Zuo said. “It’s very different now.” Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu and QI XU at qi.xu@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Exploring the sculpture garden in the Vandy courtyard.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE B9
WEEKEND SUSTAINABILITY
EARTH DAY,
// LAURIE WANG
ONE STORY AT A TIME // BY VICKY LIU “I’m constantly thinking of ways I can improve the environmental conditions in my community and trying to get other people interested in helping me.” “I’m really worried that young people won’t vote in the next election because they no longer believe in the system.” “When I went home for winter break, I was shocked at the incredibly warm weather.” In light of critical dialogue about inclusivity last fall, and in celebration of Earth Day on April 22, the Yale Climate Stories Project has begun asking questions: What is the role of community formation in sustainability at Yale? How can Yale foster conversations that go beyond checklist solutions to saving the planet? Taking an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability, the project invites faculty, staff and students to share anonymous “Climate Stories” online — instances when have they felt personally impacted by social, political, cultural or environmental conditions, either on or off campus. Paige Curtis ’16, the organizer of the project, cited the class “Climate Communication for Public Policy,” taught by Paul Lussier ’82, as the inspiration behind her initiative. “It was where my work first started,” Curtis said. “The main takeaway was that you have to connect environmental issues to personal values. Climate change is not solely an economic, scientific or social problem, it’s really a question of what people value and are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of a more stable future.” When asked about her goals for the project, Curtis described the need for Yalies to broaden their understanding of climate by thinking about social and cultural conditions that are changing along with the environment. She hopes that with enough submissions, the project can reframe Earth Day so that the holiday — whose celebration
SATURDAY APRIL
23
of the entire Earth seems too broad to be personal — can spur community formation and inclusive sustainability. The idea is that people will feel more emotionally connected to climate-change concerns, and thus be more inclined to take action, Curtis said. According to the Yale Sustainability website, although green initiatives often tend toward tangible forms of change, Climate Stories serves as a reminder that sustainability still has human experiences at its core. It is easy to quantify progress in terms of stacks of recycled paper or full compost bins, but it is rare to consider shifts in community attitudes toward the environment as real change. In reality, how people think and relate to each other in their social, cultural or political environment can incentivize them to make that space sustainable for everyone involved. Students have been responding well to this human touch. “I really like the project’s emphasis on people and their values,” Hannah Kwak said. “I think that ultimately, people are mostly influenced by the stories they’re told, [such as] the dominant attitudes in the media, in their friend groups, et cetera, and I think the project recognizes this.” Chris Valdes ’17 added that the project seems like an interesting way to humanize issues that students usually think of in terms of big corporations like the Yale administration, and that he looks forward to seeing how the project pans out. Curtis announced the pilot of the Yale Climate Stories Project on March 7 during a meeting with the Sustainability Service Corps at the Office of Sustainability, which is sponsoring the initiative. “For the most part, the Yale Office of Sustainability has excellent programs in place to reduce your impact,” Curtis said. “What is missing from sustainability discourse in general are pathways for climatechange action that align with what people care about. This project is an opportunity to reflect on that.” Curtis is referring to the observation that certain environmental concerns are more pressing in some communities than in others. For instance, some Yalies prioritize lowering the carbon footprint of dining
UNITY SPRING SHOW
Stiles Courtyard // 5 p.m. Korean drum group + and free food from Oriental Pantry.
halls, whereas others would like to see more a fuel-efficient shuttle system on campus. Jane Zhang ’19, SSC coordinator for Berkeley College, attended and enjoyed Curtis’ presentation. “The Yale Climate Stories Project is meant to engage diverse voices in Yale College in the conversation around climate change and the environment,” she explained. “Through Paige’s presentation to the Sustainability Service Corps, I was reminded of how important it is to consider equity, justice and injustice in campus sustainability and just generally, environmental thought and work.” Zhang emphasized that the burdens of environmental degradation disproportionately affect minority communities and communities of color. She said she is certain that sharing ideas with people who have different cultural backgrounds and experiences will result in more inclusive and sensitive ways to address environmental issues. The project has been circulated to various Yale student groups using posters and social media over the past two weeks. While Griffin Walsh ’19 did not hear about the project until very recently, he agreed with its objective. “The project is extremely important in that it attempts to bring to light the reality that environmental problems like climate change not only affect every one of us, but also that these serious effects are happening right now,” he said. “There are so many major environmental problems that must be addressed, and the awareness raised by this project will hopefully spur people toward taking action to confront these environmental threats.” Maanya Condamoor FES ’17 is a graduate affiliate of the Office of Sustainability who works with the Sustainability Service Corps to launch community-based environmental campaigns. She affirmed, “I hope that it will encourage people to think more about all the different smaller impacts climate change will have on their lives, as opposed to thinking on a more global and long-term scale. It personalizes the issue and can help increase interest and participation in sustainability initiatives around campus, like SSC.”
Amber Garrard, the education and outreach manager at the Office of Sustainability, also expressed her support for the project. “Sustainability recognizes that diversity is critical to ecosystem resilience, and also resilient social systems. The Climate Stories Project is an important platform to help us understand the diverse perspectives within our Yale community that will help build a strong sustainability effort on campus and beyond,” Garrard said, pointing to future institutional-level sustainability goals. “The Yale Office of Sustainability is currently developing Yale’s next Sustainability Strategic Plan for 2025. In the draft, one of the current Ambitions is around empowerment, specifically to foster a diverse and inclusive sustainability movement.” While the Office of Sustainability has ambitious plans for the future, it is currently engaged in multiple projects. For example, also in the week leading up to Earth Day, the office organized an Energy-Saving Intramural Challenge. Energy statistics in every residential college were compared to baseline values from the preceding week, and colleges competed to achieve the greatest percentage decrease in electricity usage. The winning college will receive a free Salsa Fresca study break. But in the meantime, even as students partake the various tangible ways to combat climate change — such as using less tap water, carpooling and buying products made from fair labor — they are welcome to share their voices with The Yale Climate Stories Project, which is ongoing and will remain open to submissions beyond Earth Day. Those interested in sharing a Climate Story may do so at http://yaleclimatestories. tumblr.com. Contact VICKY LIU at vicky.liu@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Rolling the down the Div School hill.
PAGE B10
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND COLUMNS
NO MORE THAN PICTURESQUE // BY KATIE MARTIN
Lily Bart, the protagonist of Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth,” is an absolute disaster. She is manipulative, judgmental, spoiled, greedy, addicted to gambling and completely incapable of making sensible decisions. But she’s just pretty enough and charming enough to get away with it for a large portion of the novel, and to get her readers firmly on her side. Half of the joy of reading this book comes from yelling at Lily to make better choices. Lily concocts a plan to seduce a wealthy man by convincing him she’s a devout Christian, and then skips church because she’d rather sleep in. Lily avoids her financial and social obligations by running off to the Mediterranean, and then does it again by running off to Alaska. Lily refuses to marry the man she loves because he’s too poor, but refuses to marry a wealthy man because she’s just not that into him. Her incompetence is as lovable as it is infuriating (an opinion many of her suitors come to share). I like a strong female character as much as the next girl. I don’t like watching women be buffeted about by the winds of fate, like Lily is. I like my ladies smart and independent and sensible. But there’s something grimly enjoyable about watching an entitled hothouse flower — your Emma Bovarys, your Anna Kareninas — lean right into her objectification and impotence. Because isn’t it enviable, just a little bit? To be constantly affirmed for your beauty, to flounce around in fancy dresses
and flutter your eyelashes at the wealthy, to manipulate and seduce and spend, spend, spend? This kind of old-timey high-femme wish-fulfillment is the flipside of Cormac McCarthy’s ultra-masculine orgies of violence, Hemingway’s sexand-shooting stoicism. And both have their modern equivalents: the smash hit “Gossip Girl” was inspired by “The House of Mirth,” and there’s an abundance of macho nonsense on television, from “True Detective” back through “Breaking Bad” and “The Sopranos.” The dichotomy here is obvious: female wish-fulfillment is relegated to soapy teen dramas and male wish-fulfillment is critically acclaimed. But let’s not forget the other dream women get to see on the small screen, one that tends to get a lot more critical traction: the rape revenge fantasy. Some of my favorite shows lean on this trope, and I don’t want to knock them — they’ve got exactly the kind of nuanced, developed female leads that I’m looking for, and they tend to be cult favorites: “The Fall,” “Jessica Jones,” even the incredibly underrated “The Bletchley Circle.” But they all follow the same rough outline: There’s a serial rapist and murderer on the loose, and our Strong Female Lead has to put a stop to him, even in the face of her own sexism-related trauma. Women are defined by the things men do to them, and I hate it. I hate, so viscerally, that even when women are at their best, they are forced to orbit
men, constantly reacting instead of acting. Lily Bart isn’t at her best, not even close. She isn’t trying to tear down the patriarchy. She doesn’t resist her objectification so much as revel in it. She spends a not-insignificant amount of time planning ways to look picturesque, and literally describes herself as a man’s “possession.” She depends on men for everything: money, advice, self-esteem. Even her self-ideation is largely based on the opinion of one of her most ardent suitors. Sure, she eventually gets a job — if you count being the world’s worst milliner as a career path. Not only that, but she’s headed straight for Madeleine Albright’s “special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” constantly bemoaning the “dinginess” of her devoted cousin Gerty. What Lily is really doing is building herself an escapist fantasy world, where she gets all the benefits of her beauty and status and gender with none of the downsides, where she can be adored and objectified, where men are endless sources of wealth and praise and not the fickle, possessive nightmares that lead to her downfall. But when her fantasy world crumbles around her, Lily joins a pantheon of women, both fictional and otherwise, who aren’t allowed to shape their own realities. Contact KATIE MARTIN at katherine.d.martin@yale.edu .
// ASHLYN OAKES
Ask Jack: Who Should I Vote for Next Tuesday? // BY JACK BARRY
DEAR JACK: I’m in a pickle. The Connecticut primaries are next week, but I still don’t know who to vote for. One day I start to feel the Bern, but the next I remember that reality exists. Am I With Her, or with Canadian serial murderer Ted Cruz? I know he’s the Zodiac Killer, but Hillary’s lifetime of shattering the glass ceiling again and again is so unin-
spiring. This year, I could not be more confused. I’ve taken every quiz on BuzzFeed, but knowing which Disney princess caused my bisexual awakening isn’t helping at all. At this point, I’m considering voting Republican — a vote for Donald Trump would be an even bigger “fuck you” to my parents than my lower-back tattoo. How can I know whom to vote for if I still sleep in a Fish Stark ’17 campaign T-shirt? — PUZZLED PESCATARIAN
DEAR PESKY: Making a big decision like this can be tough. For the first time in your life, your choices have consequences. Never before has the fate of the free world rested so heavily on your hunched shoulders. No decision you have ever made has resulted in any meaningful impact, despite what your college application may have claimed about the summer you spent teaching legless dogs to read. When you cast your ballot next Tuesday, you will have ripped open the
metaphorical hymen of civic duty and showered in the redhot ooze of patriotism. Selecting a candidate to support is never easy, but these questions ought to help you make a decision: 1. What does your gut tell you? Heed your stomach’s siren song of wailing moans as you fill out your ballot. If you’re nauseous, you’re likely thinking about Sen. Cruz. Hungry? Then you’re a Bernie Bro — it’s hard to feed yourself on a hemp jewelrymaker’s salary. Spewing hot gas indiscriminately from every orifice? Then you and the Donald have a lot in common — throw a vote in his direction! To decide our next commander in chief, listen to the
gurgling, churning mass of bile and burrito bits flowing through your intestinal tract. 2. Do you have a vagina? Don’t automatically rule out the GOP. Everyone knows the talking Flamin’ Hot Cheeto/Republican frontrunner who has called women “fat pigs,” “bitches” and “dogs,” but the other candidates deserve as much attention. Gov. John Kasich thanked the Ohio women who left their kitchens to campaign for him; as a symbol of his gratitude, he closed half the abortion clinics in his state, guaranteeing Ohio gals the right to perform their own backalley operations in the comfort of their own home. Of the three remaining candidates, Ted Cruz has by far the best record on women’s rights. He fully supports victims of rape. In fact, he promises each and every one of them the ability to carry their rapist’s child without the fear of affordable health care. On election day, it’s essential to know that the person you vote for cares about you. 3. Do you trust the person you’re voting for? With a name like Crooked Hillary, it’s obvious that the American people have serious daddy issues with Secretary Clinton. Like Pinocchio, the more Hillary Clinton lies, the bigger her shoulder pads grow. At the most recent Democratic debate, a barrel-
chested and broad-shouldered Clinton delivered a stern thump to Sanders, breaking his windpipe. She circled the arena on a flaming chariot of falsehoods, crowning herself with a diadem fashioned from her enemies’ tongues. On the other hand, if there’s one candidate you can trust, it’s Donald Trump’s hair, a third-party newcomer who has stayed above the fray while embracing his ultra-outsider status. Trump’s hair doesn’t back away from a fight — be it with a summer breeze or a nesting bird — and it has never flipflopped. Trump’s hair hasn’t changed its position since 1992. For consistency and strength, there’s only one option. Participating in a democracy is an incredible privilege only afforded to an elite few. No matter whom you decide to vote for next Tuesday, stay true to yourself and make sure to use someone else’s ID — voter fraud doesn’t commit itself. When George Washington invented democracy, he said, “To vote is to love, to tenderly kiss the bosom of Lady Liberty, to squeeze her tight, to feel her right, to love all through the night.” Your friend, Jack Contact JACK BARRY at john.c.barry@yale.edu .
// ASHLYN OAKES
SATURDAY APRIL
23
DRAG PERFORMANCE! The House // 8 p.m.
“A Drag Extravaganza with Yale’s own up-and-coming Legendaries.” Who could say no to that? Not WKND.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Chowing down at Aladdin Crown Pizza.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
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WEEKEND THEATER
MOTHER-SON DUO BRINGS A MOTHER AND SON TO STAGE // BY ANAMIKA VEERAMANI
In 1979, Terra Ziporyn ’80 wrote a musical script based on the Greek myth of “Cupid and Psyche.” Wanting to bring the script to the Yale stage, she searched for a composer, but couldn’t find someone to take on the project. The years passed; Ziporyn graduated from Yale, gave up on the musical and found work as a medical writer. And although she hadn’t been able to produce her show while in college, she would sometimes ask composer friends if they wanted to write the music to complete her script. One of these composer friends was her son, Solon Snider ’17. Snider admitted that he initially resisted joining his mother on the project, but then wavered when he encountered a curiously familiar Greek myth in one of his classes. “When I came across [“Cupid and Psyche”] in class, I thought, ‘Hadn’t my mom done something with this?’” She had. Snider called his mom to ask about her old script, and “Cupidity: A Brand New Musical Comedy” was reincarnated. The mother-son duo has been working on this project since last fall — Ziporyn dusted off the original script and, with Snider, updated the story for the 21st century, adding references to Buzzfeed, blinding cell phone camera flashes and effervescent talk show hosts.
Snider wrote and composed all of the music, which is influenced by current musical theater but has a certain ’90s flavor. After recruiting a large cast and crew, he finally brought the script — which had been dormant for over 30 years — to a Yale stage. The story sticks to the plot of the original myth — Venus, the fairest Grecian goddess, is threatened by the beauty of a mere mortal, Psyche. Wanting to eliminate her rival, Venus enlists her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the first foul creature she encounters. Ready to do his mother’s bidding, Cupid changes his mind after catching sight of Psyche and instead falls in love with her himself. He becomes her husband without allowing her to see him but the suspicious Psyche secretly shines a candle on him. When she injures him in the process, the furious Cupid abandons her. Desperate to regain his love, Psyche pleads with Venus to intercede. The goddess, not wanting to help the girl, gives Psyche a set of impossible tasks to complete in order to see her husband again. By luck and magical help, Psyche completes the tasks and wins Cupid’s love back. She becomes immortal and remains with Cupid for eternity. “Cupidity” — the modern version of the myth — tells that story exactly, except for a few modifications. Set in
21st-century Beverly Hills, the show uses the magic of Hollywood instead of the magic of the gods to advance the narrative. Rather than the fairest maiden in the land, “Cupidity’s” Psyche is “Buzzfeed’s #1 Natural Beauty.” And the oracle of Apollo does not exist in this world; instead, Dr. Apollo doles out advice and counsel on his hit talk show. These modernizations are funny and contribute to the light-hearted feel of the story, though they are occasionally delivered in a heavy-handed, overly simplified way. The adaptation itself is cohesive and full, parsing the myth in a way that’s easy for the audience to experience. The script also provides a fluid framework for the actors to structure their performances and interpretation of the myth. Whereas the only substantive characters in the original myth are Venus and Cupid, “Cupidity” showcases a diverse cast of complex characters. The audience is first introduced to Queen Venus, played by Delilah Napier ’19, an over-thetop, has-been diva. Napier fleshes out the character well, and is most convincing in her interpretation of the diva’s mannerisms and body movement. Trailing behind Venus are her assistants Doreena and Cleo, played by Gillian Bolt ’19 and Caroline Francisco ’18, respectively. Bolt and Francisco also play Psyche’s
mother and grandmother later in the musical. Both actresses flow seamlessly between their two characters, and provide an authentic performance that s tays t r u e to the story. Next saunters in the titular character, Cupid, played by Jacob Miller ’19. Miller gives Cupid a younger feel, and creates his character as grounded and likeable. The other half of the myth, Psyche, is played by Lucy Tomasso ’19. Tomasso also does a great job of personalizing the character, giving Psyche much more texture and dimension than the original myth allowed. But the brightest light amongst the luminescent cast of characters is Dr. Apollo, played by Hershel Holiday ’18. Holiday plays the gregarious, larger-than-life talk show therapist (reminiscent of Dr. Phil), who has a hand in everyone’s story. He fulfills the role perfectly, delivering wit and humor in his vibrant performance. For anyone who went through a Greek Mythology phase in middle school, the
storyline is very p re d i c ta b l e . But the vivacity of this musical rests on Ziporyn and Snider’s modernization of the myth, a task that was not easy to undertake but accomplished nonetheless. The original “Cupid and Psyche,” as written in Apuleius’s “Metamorphoses,” is filled with specific narrative machinery, a timeless love story and ancient Greek gods and goddesses, all of which contribute
to its classification as a Greek c o m e d y. Ziporyn and // DELEINE LEE Snider’s musical retelling of the story is a charming adaptation complete with original music and a compelling genesis story — it’s the perfect modern day musical comedy. Contact ANAMIKA VEERAMANI at anamika.veeramani@yale.edu .
Suddenly Spring: Alexa Derman’s Why We Have Winter // BY NOAH KIM
Last year, playwright Alexa Derman ’19 workshopped “Why We Have Winter” in a rickety, cuboid L-Dub suite. It was an informal affair, with snacks (cheese and crackers) and an audience sitting cross-legged on a hardwood floor. Now “Winter’s” a fullfledged production, directed by Michaela Johnson ’17 and starring four very talented actors. It’s come a long way from its origins. Put on by a production staff of entirely female and nonbinary individuals, “Winter” follows Anna and Helen, a same-sex couple in their last
year of high school grappling with the fallout from a party where Helen was sexually assaulted in a bathroom. Along with fellow students Jeremy and Peter, the two are putting on a play about the abduction of Persephone, a myth with obvious symbolic value considering their current circumstances. “Winter’s” focus is not chiefly narrative. It’s a post play, in that it deals with aftermath rather than event. However, the dialogue is so airtight and the prevailing mood of desperation so well painted that the production rarely
sags. The raw emotional intensity of the situation is never cheapened by cliche or sentimentality (an enormous danger, especially when dealing with topics as weighty as those tackled here). Derman depicts the characters with enormous sympathy; one can identify with both Helen and Anna, even when they’re at odds. At times, “Winter,” like “The Glass Menagerie,” feels like an extended expiation of guilt. Played by Isabella Giovannini ’18, Helen is the production’s main character; the play dwells on her contradictory emotions as she strug-
gles with and is occasionally overwhelmed by the pressure of being both partner and caretaker to an emotionally and sexually unavailable Anna. Derman has a real ear for the language of evasion, and her dialogue often recalls “Hills Like White Elephants” in the way it revolves around and around and around a gravitationally attractive topic without ever getting anywhere. Three of the four characters riff in the effusive mode reminiscent of upper-middle-class teenagers involved in theater, and the verbiage of early scenes can test one’s
patience with torrents of pop culture references and millennial irony that gradually grows grating. However, as the horrifying specifics of the situation become clearer and clearer, this concern becomes irrelevant and the joking and deflection acquire an aching sadness. It’s tempting, as a reviewer, to vacillate back and forth between different poles of extremity, to shriek either praise or opprobrium from the rafters. Nobody wants to read or to write a middling evaluation. The prevalence of declamatory reviews may
mean that the following isn’t taken with much seriousness. But at this moment, I truly mean it when I say that this, friends, may be something along the lines of a capital E Event. “Winter” is an urgent play of lacerating anger and quiet pathos, genuinely affecting and devastating in its emotional impact. I left reeling. It’s a play our campus needs right now, and I might even venture to say that it’s the best student production I’ve seen over the last two years. Contact NOAH KIM at noah.kim@yale.edu .
An Intricate Web // BY ALICE ZHAO
“We Wove A Web” is a clever work. Nothing at first glance is what it seems. It’s supposed to be a show about the lives of the Brontë sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne; but in this script, Emily and Anne are already dead. The lights flicker on and Charlotte is alone in their once-shared house. She sits at a table and reminisces. Her memories play out on stage. “We Wove A Web” is not a play. Despite the presence of narration, the show is, in essence, a dance theater piece. The actresses leap and bound across the stage, tumble across beds and dive under tables. A live orchestra accompanies their movements, swelling violins and rumbling cellos; the musicians play in the shadows behind the set. Rebecca Brudner ’16, the director of the show, said that “We Wove A Web” has been a long time in the making. Although it is her senior thesis project, Brudner said that she first conceived of the idea long before she had to turn in a formal
FRIDAY APRIL
22
proposal. “I’ve been sort of obsessed with the Brontë sisters for a while, since middle school,” she laughed. Brudner explained that during her sophomore year of college, she originally planned on writing a play about the lives of the Brontës. However, as she read pre-existing plays about the family in order to familiarize herself with the genre, she realized that most of these works felt unsatisfactory to her. She didn’t agree with the tendency of those authors to create what she deemed “false narratives” for the sisters, conflating fiction with reality. Brudner then decided that it might be more effective to just use primary source texts as the script of her show instead of inventing her own dialogue. The summer before senior year, she received a grant to study at the Brontë sisters’ hometown, where she pored over numerous correspondences written by the sisters, from childhood to adulthood. Most of the narration in
“We Wove A Web” is lifted directly from the Brontë sisters’ own writings, including their diary entries, letters and novels. Her wo rk with these primary s o u rc e texts also led her to
#NOFLOSSZONE
J.E. Theater // 4:30 p.m. Hate flossing, love feelings.
the idea of creating a dance theater piece. Brudner said she sensed a restraint in the Brontë sisters’ correspondences, which she surmised was a product of their upbringing in the repressive Victorian era. This lack of embodiment, of being unable to fully express their
// ZISHI LI
feelings, inspired Brudner to create a piece where the Brontë sisters’ innermost emotions could play out in front of an audience. “I felt like there was a physical impulse in the words,” she said. “I felt like I, as a contemporary woman, could really seize upon dance as an extension of their writing.” Gideon Broshy ’17, the composer of “We Wove a Web,” noted that the earliest stages of developing the show involved heavy improvisation. He said that the primary source texts Brudner selected served as the core inspiration of the show, and the music he created organically flowed from interpreting those excerpts. Brudner, who also choreographed the show, agreed. She explained that initially she gave the actresses excerpts from the primary sources and allowed them to dance however they felt fit. Brudner then reviewed the actresses’ movements and either altered the choreography or left the original improvisa-
tions untouched. Broshy also emphasized that although he enjoyed a lot of freedom while composing the music, he, Brudner and the actresses worked in close collaboration to make sure that the score, the choreography and the script seamlessly wove together. Miles Walter ’18, the associate director of the show, further stressed the importance of integrating all of these separate parts together into one cohesive work. “It’s pulling together totally disparate sources and combining them into a structure that really is dramatically tight and viable,” he said. “We Wove A Web” is only an hour long, a testament to the intense editing process that Brudner adopted in order to streamline and focus the show. However, despite its short length, the show is undeniably haunting. It’s the kind of experience that passes quickly but lingers, doesn’t let go. Contact ALICE ZHAO at alice.zhao@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Meeting your Tinder date at Grove Street Cemetery.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND BACKSTAGE
ART IN UNEXPECTED PLACES // MAYA SWEEDLER
// COURTESY OF SASKIA STOLZ
S
askia Stolz is the Dutch artist behind the “Moving People,” small figurines installed in Bass Library to honor the millions of refugees currently fleeing their homes. She is also the founder of the Power of Art House, an art collective that addresses socio-political issues. Visiting Yale for a few days, Saskia took some time to sit down with WKND and discuss about her art collective, the role of a modern artist and her influences.
Q: What is the Power of Art House’s approach to art? A: The Power of Art House is a creative collective of artists who want to intervene. We use art as a weapon against indifference. There are a lot of social issues and not a lot of awareness, especially in Holland — though I guess it’s everywhere. We want to raise awareness of those issues, mostly through street art. Usually we do it in public spaces. It’s really an intervention at the moment you don’t expect it and in a place you don’t expect it, so it has the most impact. Q: How is the Power of Art House organized? A: We have a think tank that’s quite big. It [consists of] 12 artists. When we come together, sometimes it’s four, sometimes all 12, sometimes I work with one. It depends. [An idea] starts with me, because I’m always the angry one, and then it catches. I’ll call the think tank and ask to talk about the idea — to improve it or enhance it — and it works. They’re very critical, but that’s good. Q: How did you develop this approach? A: I had my own design agency for 15 years that did work for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, all these nongovernmental organizations. It’s a campaigning agency, so I’m used to developing public campaigns, mostly awareness campaigns. Those organizations developed professionalization that made the whole communication feel like marketing. They’re really selling a product. I was doing the same, but it doesn’t touch me anymore — it wasn’t straight from the heart. When the war started in Syria, I read an article about a boy who was tortured to death in prison. I was so shocked by this article, and it made me so
angry, that I started drawing this boy and began the street art action. Everybody liked the action; everybody was talking about it. And I thought: Ah, this is a much better way. When you do art in the street, people really feel it’s theirs. It’s not art in a museum, it’s in a public space, and the message is very clear. Q: What do you think is most effective about street art, and how would you characterize the reaction it generates?
A: Most of the time, we use subjects from the everyday world and we give it a twist. Since the art is in a public place, and is often an object close to you, it’s weird — people start talking about it. Or, with “Moving People,” it’s about scaling. We took real people and made them small, and everybody liked it because it was cute. It made the ugly stuff accessible, and that’s the biggest effect. We provoke conversation and force people to talk about things they don’t want to talk about. Q: How did you come up with “Moving People,” and what sort of response have you seen? A: “Moving People” was created at a moment in which I was really angry because people were talking very badly about refugees. In Holland, the debate is extremely polarized, and people were saying such ugly things about refugees that I wanted to make something small and cute. It’s unbelievable how many people have embraced “Moving People” and are sharing it — thousands of people. And of course, they’re talking about it. There was a politician in Holland who put one of the Moving People in Parliament and posted a photo on Twitter, so that got a large reaction … It was so great to see this little figurine provoked a debate. Q: How do you view the role of the artist in today’s society? Does an artist have a responsibility to address these social or political issues? A: It’s difficult, because a lot of people are asking whether it’s the responsibility of an artist to be engaged. To be honest, I don’t have an opinion. An artist can do what he wants, and if he wants to make art just because it’s beautiful, and he has no message, that’s fine. But when you are engaged
and you use your art to spread a message, that’s also good. Q: Do you have a favorite artist? A: For a long time, my favorite artist was Banksy. For 10 years, he was my favorite, but now the whole world loves him, so I think he’s a cliche. But when I was young, I loved Hobart — he was really something else. I also love surrealist painters, so Magritte and all that. Q: Do you see any similarities between your work and Banksy’s? A: We did one street art action, and there were people saying, “Oh that really looks like Banksy.” Well, that’s not completely true because it’s a type of style. We both used stencils. Only this action was similar, but the rest, not so much. We also use design; we’ve done necklaces. The style is always different. Q: What does Power of Art House have planned next? A: We are developing a new project called “Invisible People.” It’s about people who are not visible to society because they’re living on the edge. They [are dealing with] financial problems, mental health problems, drinking problems, and they need help. I’m not only talking about homeless people. They can be anybody. We want to make those “invisible people” visible. We’re going to put hundreds of pairs of shoes — really artistic, beautiful shoes — on the streets. For each pair, there will be a shadow of a real person, so it’s like a literal invisible person. In the shoe, there will be a QR code. People can scan the codes and hear from the “invisible people.” For example, it might be a little poem or video. Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .
“It made the ugly stuff accessible, and that’s the biggest effect.”