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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 18 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY CLOUDY

74 53

CROSS CAMPUS

Yale University

IMAGINE SCHWARZMAN

BLANK SPACE ENVISIONING THE NEW COMMONS

GETTING AROUND

OUT OF THE WOODS

Elm City leaders find that ensuring transportation for all is no easy task.

FORESTRY SCHOOL DEAN HEADS FOR GREENER PASTURES.

PAGE B3 WEEKEND

PAGE 5 CITY

PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY

New colleges redefine a neighborhood

Fin. With today’s issue, the Managing Board of 2016 concludes its year at the helm of the Oldest College Daily. And what a year it was — but we’ll save the nostalgia for the News’ View, hopefully imparting nuggets of wisdom along the way. See you on the other side, comrades.

it wasn’t clear, this farewell is a product of introducing our successors, the members of the Managing Board of 2017. We have to elect them first, however, by locking ourselves in 202 York St. for far too many hours on Saturday. Will there be a gap in campus news coverage during that time, you ask? Never; we’ll be ready. Long live the Yale Daily News.

So cultured. Take, for

example, the Whaling Crew’s “Kegs and Eggs” tailgate, to take place before the first Eli home football game at 1 p.m. on Saturday. It may sound debaucherous, but “parents are always welcome,” apparently, as long as they are 21 years of age or older in the state of Connecticut.

Yale’s pastime. For all the

history lining the Yale Bowl, the Eli baseball team is steeped in even more tradition. On Saturday, the Bulldogs will celebrate the 150th anniversary of their first game, in throwback threads, no less. Come for the baseball, stay for the vintage vibes.

We have it all. From culture, to sports, to science and technology — Yale has you covered. The Yale College Council’s big contribution to family weekend is a “fun, classy night” at the Leitner Planetarium on Saturday with all the telescopes you could want. Is it spread day yet? Scoreboard. We’ve put the performance of the University’s endowment above the fold in this issue, but The Wall Street Journal was one of many other publications to jump in on the fun. “Yale Beats Harvard, As Usual,” the Journal’s headline reads. We like their style. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

2012 Economics professor Ray Fair — known for his research in macroeconometrics — publishes the results of his latest predictive model, which suggests a statistical dead heat between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. This is Cross Campus signing off.

Cheers | @yaledailynews

ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus

How the football team can win against Cornell this weekend. PAGE 16 SPORTS

Endowment, besting peers, hits new high BY LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTER

or buy real estate in Wooster Square, East Rock or communities outside New Haven. The opening of the new colleges is still two years away, and the day they reach full capacity even farther. For decades until they were torn down to make way for the colleges, Yaleowned office buildings and classrooms occupied the site, so Ozalp’s properties are technically no closer to campus than they were before construction began. It is too early to tell if Ozalp will prove correct, too early to draw any conclusions about exactly what the new buildings and the new presence of 800 under-

Though well below its 20 percent return for fiscal 2014, the Yale endowment’s 11.5 percent performance in 2015 has once again placed it among the top tier of institutional investors. On Thursday, the University announced that the Yale Investments Office had beaten market estimates to post a return of 11.5 percent, bringing Yale’s 20-year performance to 13.7 percent per annum. Over the past fiscal year, which ended on June 30, the Yale endowment grew from $23.9 billion to $25.6 billion, bringing its value to a nominal high, crossing the $25 billion threshold for the first time in its history. As a result of this performance, the University benefited from investment gains of approximately $2.6 billion — funds that are used in part to provide substantial support for current scholars, while also “preserving the endowment’s purchasing power for future generations,” according to Thursday’s press release. “This is an excellent return. In a very, very tough environment that we have had, Yale has consistently produced excellent numbers, which validates their strategy,” said Charles Skorina, founder of Charles A. Skorina & Co., a recruiting firm for university endowments. “[Chief Investment Officer] David Swensen’s objectives are to build relationships with a small group of top money managers, and keep the focus on a few as opposed to the many … the man has delivered and continues to deliver.” Swensen declined to comment. Yale’s investment returns for 2015 bested many of its peer institutions, including the two universities with assets

SEE UP CLOSE PAGE 8

SEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 6

Not so fast, Rumpus. In case

Family first. Here at Yale, we tend to get so wrapped up in our teams, our clubs, our societies that hosting our actual families on campus serves as a refreshing reminder of the people with whom we most closely associate. Fortunately, Yale’s cultural and arts groups are all kinds of excited to greet your folks with performances throughout the weekend to help you show off how cultured Yale is.

KEYS TO THE GAME

N

ew Haven is changing — rapidly. Nowhere is that more evident than in the neighborhoods surrounding Yale’s two new residential colleges. Residents of Dixwell and Newhallville are left to wonder what, precisely, that change will mean for them. ISABELLE TAFT reports. GENEVA DECKER/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Construction on the two new residential colleges is set for completion in 2017. BY ISABELLE TAFT STAFF REPORTER For months now, residents of Mansfield, Sachem and Winchester streets near Ingalls Rink have dealt with the inconveniences of living right next to one of the largest construction projects in Connecticut history. Almost every day of the week, from before dawn until dusk, trucks, workers and construction supplies trundle noisily down residential streets, largely occupied by graduate students and young families. But Bulent Ozalp, who owns three homes within a few blocks of the new colleges and has seven tenants, does

not mind at all. To Ozalp, the construction means one thing: higher property values are on the way.

UPCLOSE “I can smell that money will come,” Ozalp said. He surveys the fast-growing skeletons of the colleges and sees change coming to the neighborhood where he has lived for the past 10 years. His rationale is this: As undergraduates move into the area, foot traffic and security patrols will increase, and the neighborhood atmosphere will become more appealing to people who might otherwise choose to rent

Wolfson ’78, “Mr. Marriage,” closes up shop BY EMMA PLATOFF STAFF REPORTER By the morning of Friday, June 26, the staff of Freedom to Marry had already been waiting a long time. Members of the organization, which worked in a yearslong, targeted effort to ensure the right for gay couples to marry, were watching the calendar as

Supreme Court decisions began to trickle out slowly — first on Mondays, then on Mondays and Thursdays, eventually adding others as decision days as well. Team members had been gathering in the conference room on each potential decision day since the Court began handing down verdicts in June. Sitting in his office in Chelsea, Evan Wolfson ’78, founder

Bildner alleges Eidelson camp broke election law BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH AND ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTERS Nine days after Sarah Eidelson ’12 defeated challenger Fish Stark ’17 in the Ward 1 Democratic Primary, Rafi Bildner ’16 — a former volunteer on Stark’s campaign — has filed a complaint to the state elections commission alleging that Eidelson’s campaign violated election law. The complaint, filed with the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission this morning, claims that members of Eidelson’s campaign violated state election law by canvassing within 75 feet of the polling place in the basement of the New Haven Free Public Library. Eidelson won the Sept. 16 primary with over 66 percent of the vote. “I witnessed several different individuals from the Sarah

Eidelson campaign team walk/ escort voting members of the public past the 75-foot line,” Bildner wrote in his complaint. “While they were walking the public to the polling site, and past the 75-foot line, I heard these volunteers/organizers actively campaign to the constituents they were escorting.” According to state law, no person canvassing for or against any candidate may step within 75 feet of any polling place during an election. The 75-foot line, the law states, will be clearly marked. On the day of the primary election, a sign marking the 75-foot boundary was placed at the top of the ramp leading down to the entrance of the library. Eidelson declined to comment and said she will not make a statement regarding Bildner’s filing until she receives notice SEE COMPLAINT PAGE 4

and president of Freedom to Marry, recalled the anticipation of that day and the unique weight that it carried. June 26 had a certain “civil rights karma” to it, Wolfson said. The movement had won two major gay rights cases that same week in years past: In 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned on June 26, and on June 25, 2014, a federal judge in

Indiana struck down anti-marriage laws. Maybe, Wolfson hoped, Justice Anthony Kennedy would want to maintain the date’s legacy. “People asked me hundreds of times a day: ‘Is it going to be today? Is it going to be tomorrow?’ I would keep saying ‘Nobody knows, nobody knows,’” Wolfson said, pausing. “At the

same time, it was hard not to feel like Friday was going to be the day.” The S u p re m e Co u r t announced its decision at roughly 10 a.m. that morning. Seated around Freedom to Marry’s conference room table with his staff, Wolfson was the first one to see the news pop up on the interSEE WOLFSON PAGE 6

Survey points to high rates of sexual assault in Ivy League

WILLIAM ALIKA SMITH/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale is one of five Ivy League universities that reported higher rates of sexual assault than the average rate across the 27 participants. BY VIVIAN WANG STAFF REPORTER Five of seven Ivy League schools reported higher rates of sexual assault than the average rate across 27 participating colleges, according to the Association of American Universities’ survey of sexual climates that

was released this week. Among its peer institutions in the Ivy League, Yale had the highest rate of sexual assaults on undergraduate women, with 28.1 percent of the respondents reporting an experience of “nonconsensual penetraSEE AAU SURVEY PAGE 6


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