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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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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “There's no reason to stick around for the second semester if you don't yaledailynews.com/opinion

find it intellectually captivating.”

Yale’s Coke problem S

ome 30 years ago, before most Yale undergrads were born, Coca-Cola and Pepsi engaged in a fierce battle for a place in the American consumer’s chalice. The 1980s were a weird time, but the Cola War that Coke and Pepsi fought out on-screen, in print and at the supermarket seemed not out of the ordinary. In 2015, though, we’re fighting a Cola War of a different kind. This past week, Coca-Cola disclosed that the company has spent around $120 million on funding programs, research, partnerships and sponsorships that work to promote health and combat the obesity crisis. The announcement comes after New York Times reporting exposed the company’s attempts to obfuscate the sugar beverage’s role in expanding the American waistline. The release of information was an exercise in transparency for an industry long shrouded in smoke and mirrors. It gives a glimpse into how soda companies can seem like they’re advocating on behalf of the public, but are actually propping up groups and funding research to spread a particular agenda. New York City provides an apt case study. When the “soda ban” — the restriction of larger portion sugar-sweetened beverages in New York City restaurants — was introduced, groups like “New Yorkers for Beverage Choices” called for its demise, while public health advocates praised the move. These “Beverage Choice” shadow groups serve to spread the idea that laws that make it harder to drink sugar water are draconian, rather than highlight their potential public health benefits. In actuality, “New Yorkers for Beverage Choices” was the puppet mastery of the soda industry. Coke’s disclosure shines light on the work of more recent front groups. One, called the “Global Energy Balance Network,” purports that obesity is a simple problem of exercise, rather than a more complex problem. It’s one of a bevy of pseudoscientific principles that the industry uses to blame rising obesity rates on obese individuals, rather than examining the disease’s structural roots. Some of Coke’s partnerships have been academic in nature, which is especially upsetting — one would hope that scientists would conduct medical research without undue business influence. We’d like to think that obesity isn’t funded by the institutions that profit from selling junk food. We’d especially like to think that a place like Yale would be exempt from such a conflict of interest. History suggests this is not the case. Coke’s disclosure is only a recent example of a long pattern of soda industry mis-

chief. But it brings to mind a notso-distant dance that Yale had with Big Soda. In 2009, AUSTIN Ya l e N e w s BRYNIARSKI announced that PepGuns & siCo partnered with butter Yale’s medical school to promote research that, it claimed, would improve health through proper nutrition. Fellows under the partnership would be designated “PepsiCo Fellows,” and would “focus on the development of healthier food and beverage products that can improve people’s overall diets.” The pitch sounds eerily similar to Coke’s infiltration of the ivory tower. Pepsi’s Yale ties run deeper, though. Indra Nooyi SOM ’80 served as a member of the Corporation from 2002 until last year. Undoubtedly renowned for her business acumen, Nooyi nevertheless sparked the ire of the public health world when she claimed that the products PepsiCo sells — the caloriedense snacks, the sugary beverages and everything in between — don’t contribute to chronic disease. Not all Yale graduates or business affiliates will have sterling reputations, and not everything they say will be savory. (To assume that Yale would make no connections to industry would be egregious — we’ve got a School of Management, after all.) Yet by making partnerships with companies like Pepsi without scrutinizing them, Yale is complicit in their troubling behavior. This is what makes Yale’s acceptance of PepsiCo funding five years ago — and, indeed, its acceptance of any corporate funding henceforth — particularly problematic. Even if a philanthropic donation claims to be neutral or without some specious purpose, is it still somehow tarnished? Across the country, cities are passing laws that make it harder for soda companies to advertise in certain spaces. Federal legislation has recently allowed the United States Department of Agriculture to regulate the influence of soda industry marketing in school settings. The laws reflect public health wisdom on soda and its discontents: It isn’t healthy, and its consumption needs to be curtailed. Yale can catch up, too. As for Big Soda, it’s only a matter of time before the fountains dry up. AUSTIN BRYNIARSKI is a senior in Calhoun College. His column runs on Fridays. Contact him at austin.bryniarski@yale.edu .

'MORSESTUDENT1' ON 'GLOBALIZE DS'

NEWS’

VIEW The things we still don't know

T

here is so much we don’t know about Yale, about New Haven, about ourselves and about one another. We, the Managing Board of 2016, are acutely aware of this fact, even as we conclude a year of editing the Yale Daily News — uncovering details about our campus and exploring the events that make the days here go by slowly but the semesters pass with lightning speed. We’re journalists; we thrive on change. But this one snuck up on us: This is our final issue. We elect our successors on Saturday. Next week’s paper may not bear visible witness to this transition. It will be the same News, awaiting your thoughts and your rejoinder, even your outrage. But our lives will change dramatically. Forty-two of us have edited and designed this paper for a year. We took photos and shot video. We drew illustrations and wrote code. We did it because we love the News, and cherish the abiding friendships we’ve made here.

But we also did it because Yale as an institution has moved us, and we’ve felt compelled to find out why. Yale is too vibrant to be experienced with indifference, too vigorous and vital to be accepted with unthinking satisfaction. There is no easy contentment here. Yale doesn’t beckon us to be at ease. It is a torrent of activity and ideas, a flood in which we’re thrown as freshmen, sink or swim. Our response has been to ask questions — of classmates, of professors, of administrators and of the staff members who make Yale work every single day. We’ve tried to trace what is unknown, to search for the most complete answers we can find and then to communicate that information to an intellectual community that is at its best when it is well-informed. We know our readers haven’t always agreed with the decisions we’ve made. We’ve looked unflinchingly into some of the community’s rawest wounds: sexual violence, mental illness and

the fault lines of race and class that continue to divide the student body. We’ve done this not as a way to dwell on the pain of our classmates but in hopes that the News can serve as an alarm bell for the Yale community, calling it to reflect on the ways in which we fall short of our ideals. The highest tribute we can pay our University is to insist that what besets us now doesn’t have to be. We make this observation knowing full well we live in two worlds as student journalists — we are your peers, your lab partners, your friends and your students, but we are also unbiased observers, on the cusp of the action. It’s been our job to track institutional change, but we join our readers in waiting anxiously for the University to make itself better, to live up to its highest purpose. Searching for, and respecting, the truth of what goes on at Yale — rarely obvious at first glance — has been our mission. Stupefying, though, is the sheer magnitude of what eludes us during the

four years we spend as undergraduates. Yale’s long history, which is one-hundred times honorable for every one of its blemishes, remains a mere footnote in the histories we make for ourselves on campus. While we yearn to know more, the realization that there are mysteries is ennobling in its own right. We’ve been entrusted with the News for a single year. The topics we’ve covered have changed us, just as they’ve changed Yale. Everything we’ve been able to find out is now set down on our website and in a series of issues bound in volumes that will live on the fourth floor of our building. The most important legacy we can leave is insisting on the enduring importance of what remains unknown. We make our mark by passing on our questions to the next generation. This has been our job, our obligation. But it’s also been an immense joy — to think and wonder alongside all of you. To ask questions. Keep wondering. Keep asking questions.

Revoke Cosby's degree I

n November, I drafted a petition urging Yale to revoke the honorary doctorate the University awarded Bill Cosby in 2003. An article in the Washington Post had alerted me to the stories of 16 women who said that the popular comedian had assaulted them, with a dozen noting that he had drugged them into submission beforehand. An op-ed titled “Rescind Cosby’s Doctorates,” authored by Clemson associate professor Jonathan Beecher Field and posted to the blog Inside Higher Ed, inspired me to write my own letter to University President Peter Salovey. In the middle of December, when I finished gathering signatures, about 200 members of the Yale community had co-signed. Salovey responded with a polite note about the University’s strong position against sexual misconduct and the need to build our community on integrity and respect. He told me he and his colleagues would “continue to monitor the situation.” Consider the situation monitored. We have since learned that Cosby’s pattern of abusive behavior spanned decades. In a 2005 deposition, he admitted giving Quaaludes — the powerful sedative of “Wolf of Wall Street”

fame — to women with whom he intended to have sex. Now nearly 50 women have come forward to share what the TV dad in the Technicolor sweaters allegedly did to them. Thirty-five of those women spoke to New York magazine, which this summer published a powerful story about their experiences. The cover of that issue featured a black-and-white photograph of every one of those women, each seated and staring at the camera. Their pictures were arranged in a grid. An empty chair, positioned in the bottom-right corner, symbolized the women who have yet to come forward. The bravery of these women — and the cruelty of the man they say attacked them — has inspired many institutions, academic and otherwise, to strip Cosby of the numerous honors he once held. Spelman College put an end to an honorary professorship that Cosby and his wife had endowed. The Navy took back his honorary rank. Netflix scrapped a previously planned Cosby comedy special. And yesterday, two Jesuit universities, Fordham and Marquette, independently announced they would rescind the honorary degrees they had awarded to Cosby.

Yale should add its voice to this group of institutions, and in doing so, stand in solidarity with the women who have spoken out about their harrowing experiences. Revoking Cosby’s doctorate is about more than achieving justice for his victims. It is a gesture, however small, against sexual violence wherever these heinous crimes occur — including at Yale and other college campuses. Fordham’s president, Joseph M. McShane, expressed this sentiment well when he wrote that Cosby’s behavior “hurt not only his victims, but all women, and is beyond the pale.” What continues to boggle my mind is the existence of Cosby apologists. Last year, when I was working on the petition, a classmate messaged me to let me know that although he admired my activism, he would refrain from signing until Cosby was convicted in a court of law. But Cosby’s legal team has mounted a fierce defense against his accusers. The women who came forward have subjected themselves to vitriolic attacks and have little to gain from false accusations. Cosby’s star-power may have dimmed, but unfortunately, his celebrity still shines bright enough to blind otherwise intelli-

gent, kind people to the dozens of women bravely seated before us. Before reading that Washington Post article last November, I didn’t consider myself passionate about stopping sexual violence. I cared about other causes more, and although I supported in principle the work my friends and classmates had done to support Title IX complainants or organize Take Back the Night events, I was just as likely to roll my eyes at their passion behind closed doors. Wasn’t this all, I thought, a bit too much? No more. The Cosby women and the shameful treatment they have received has opened my eyes. The time is now to revoke Cosby’s honorary doctorate, and I ask you to join me in urging President Salovey to do so. Today, I’m shocked that it’s taken 35 women on a magazine cover to motivate our nation’s institutions into action, and frustrated that many still refuse to take a stand. But what moves me to continue is the shameful truth that it took almost as many women to motivate me. MARISSA MEDANSKY is a 2015 graduate of Morse College and an opinion editor on the Managing Board of 2014. Contact her at marissamedansky@gmail.com .

GUEST COLUMNIST ALEXA DERMAN

Taking action, taking care

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All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words and guest columns to 750. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters and columns before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission. Direct all letters, columns, artwork and inquiries to: Rishabh Bhandari and Diana Rosen Opinion Editors Yale Daily News opinion@yaledailynews.com

COPYRIGHT 2015 — VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 18

O

n Monday morning, startling information about our community was released. The results of the American Association of Universities’ Campus Sexual Climate survey have by now been documented, with varying degrees of accuracy, not only by members of our campus but also by national news sources. For some of us, these findings, while disturbing, were not shocking. For others, the sheer existence of sexual violence on our campus was stunning. And as Yalies do, we’ve prepared ourselves for the next steps. How do we turn this data into action? How do we transform numbers that induce grief into change? The problem is evident: Members of our community are being treated without respect. Where do we go from here? What must we change? I think we all can imagine that these statistics will be the starting point for serious discussions over the next few days, weeks, months. With any luck at all, they’ll finally add even greater urgency to the muted con-

versations that have already been happening for decades. While I don’t know the answers to those questions, I do know that they come from a desire to build a campus culture of kindness and respect — that they come from compassion. As such, I think it’s important to remember that as our community comes to terms with what these numbers mean, self care is important. As we have these important conversations, we must do so with the overarching theme of kindness. Check in with your friends, make a cup of tea, snuggle in your favorite sweater, take care of yourself. These dialogues are so important, but especially for those of us whose lives have been touched by these issues, they aren’t always easy. I also want to remind our community that responding to this survey is more complicated than solving a challenging puzzle to which we now have the pieces. These numbers are staggering, but their vastness also means that in any conversation, there

are likely to be people whose lives have been affected by this issue. In the past days alone, we’ve talked about these numbers so often as just numbers — one in four, 34 percent, “vast majority” — but in reality those numbers represent so many of us. We are people who read columns blaming hook-up culture and Overheard at Yale debates about co-ed housing and complaints. We see ourselves in national news outlets where commenters weigh the semantics of “unwanted sexual touching.” By we, I don’t mean survivors of violence or those whose loved ones are — I mean we, Yale. We are nonbinary students who are being victimized at stunning rates, we are women of color who are more likely to be assaulted than our white peers, we are offenders: “Friend or acquaintance,” “Stranger,” “Someone I had dated or was intimate with.” We live in “University residence hall/dorm” and frequent “Fraternity or sorority house.” We “did not think it was serious enough to

report.” But we’re also going to class tomorrow, lingering behind to chat after our seminar, staying up late to finish a pset, pretending to forget to attach a paper to an email in order to snag some extra time. We, Yale. Rather than maneuvering ourselves into objective observers remarking on the pros and cons of hooking up or drinking, members of our community need to grapple with the faces behind all of the numbers, big and small, because those faces are our own. There is a time to begin to wrestle with how we can use these numbers to shape our policies. That time is now. There is a time for reflection on being considerate and kind toward ourselves and the people around us as we embark on a difficult dialogue. That time is now. ALEXA DERMAN is a sophomore in Berkeley College and the outreach coordinator of the Yale Women’s Center. Contact her at alexa.derman@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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FRIDAY FORUM

ALBERT SCHWEITZER “The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.”

Looking for unwanted hands E

arlier this week, Lady Gaga released a new music video called “Til it Happens to You,” which details three graphic scenes of sexual violence, in order to raise awareness about sexual assault on college campuses. A few days later, the American Association of Universities released the results from a recent survey on collegiate sexual violence. Both offer grim perspectives of collegiate sex culture, and both received a lot of attention at Yale and across the country. Though I still struggle to make sense of the AAU report, I’ve found that Gaga’s video serves as an instructive foil revealing some of the preconceptions we hold about sexual violence, and how, after these disturbing revelations about our community, we can work to move forward. Gaga’s effort to raise awareness about sexual violence is laudable, but her message is misleading and her medium is inept. The story arc of her music video is archetypal and simplistic. Three heterosexual men use force or drugs to incapacitate and then rape young women. The tableau is shocking but familiar; such portrayals of collegiate sexual violence have become embedded in the American psyche, nestled next to our fear of the stranger in the alley way. We are painfully aware of this kind of violence and it takes up too much of our conversational bandwidth. When we allow ourselves to be fixated by rape, other insidious but less severe forms of sexual misconduct fly under the radar. Sexual violence unfolds on a spectrum — from rape to harassment, to behavior that is not severe enough to fit Yale’s standards of misconduct but disrespectful enough to violate standards of common decency. While a hand being repeatedly swatted away from a thigh is not as gripping an image as a roofied teenager lying unrobed, lower forms of sexual pressure and disrespect are still profound problems because they serve as both the context and cloaking for more severe behavior. Lower-level sexual impropriety deserves more of our awareness because it is the realm in which we can make progress. The most shocking implication we can draw from the survey is that, as a community, we have not yet figured out what sexual vio-

YOUR LETTERS opinion@yaledailynews.com

WRITE TO US All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission.

This is no time to reinvent wheels First and foremost, I would like to say that Michael Herbert’s ’16 column (“CS Thrifty,” Sept. 23) got it completely right on the most important point it touched on: Yale’s Computer Science department is severely under-resourced and understaffed. For some reason that has never been explained, Yale chose not to expand its computer science faculty in the decades since the Internet and the Web first became dominant forces in our culture, our economy and almost all aspects of our daily lives — decades in which Yale’s competitors were expanding their computer science faculties significantly. Fortunately, it looks as though things may be changing. The modest faculty expansion announced in March 2015 was a good first step in the right direction, and we in the Computer Science Department are hopeful that further, more substantial steps are in the works. Unfortunately, Herbert misunderstands the role of lectures in CS50 and in STEM courses in general. Dr. Malan’s lectures are inspiring, informative, entertaining and superbly produced, but they are not the venue in which nuts-and-bolts learning by CS50 students actually occurs. Note that attendance at CS50 lectures is optional at Harvard, where students may register for both CS50

lence looks like. An important step towards figuring this out is raising our awareness of sexual pressure and disrespect. We should look NATHAN unwanted KOHRMAN for hands and make sure they stay At the seam off of uncomfortable thighs. When a friend talks about their hook up, instead of asking “What base?” we should ask “Did you guys have fun?” We dig up weeds by pulling out their roots. The other lamentable aspect of Lady Gaga’s music video is her portrayal of men. From the video, one gets the impression that college men are divided equally between allies and predators. This notion, also deep-seated in American discourse around sexual violence, leads to the perennial claim that college men are cavalier and disrespectful, which is often followed by the complaint that college men are unfairly persecuted. Neither

notion is accurate or constructive. The efforts of college men and all-male college groups, are essential to addressing sexual violence. At Yale, as at many American colleges, male-dominated organizations have disproportionate stewardship over drinking and socialization. Yale has fraternity houses, sports team houses and all-male a cappella houses. Regardless of one’s gender, everyone in the Yale community has a responsibility to make our community safe, but allmale groups have the social capital and positioning to make an enormous impact. This is particularly true when it comes to sexual pressure and sexual disrespect, which thrive in dark, loud places. College men are not a homogenous group, and thus are not necessarily allies or predators. But men and all-male groups are the stewards of much of Yale’s partying, placing us on the frontlines of lower-level sexual misconduct. Small adjustments could make a huge difference. At parties, try playing music at a lower volume, and leaving the lights a bit brighter. I’ve found that Yalies

like hearing and seeing each other. Also, party hosts and partygoers can ask people who look uncomfortable or excessively drunk how they’re doing. Hopefully nothing is amiss, but it never hurts to check in. This is hardly exhaustive, and each group will know best how to begin a healthy conversation, but we can all agree that it is counterproductive to portray college men as the problem when we can be such a substantial part of the solution. We have the power to ignore these behaviors or address them. It is easy to fixate on the horrors of rape, but we must also raise our awareness and commitment to preventing lower-level sexual pressure. What we pay attention to dictates how we respond. These lower-level issues are not always the most intuitive to look at, but they are the platform to make the most positive change. NATHAN KOHRMAN is a senior in Saybrook College. His column usually runs on alternate Thursdays. Contact him at nathan.kohrman@yale.edu .

CAROLINE TISDALE/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

and another class in which lecinformed discussion with Herbert tures are scheduled at the same in January 2018. time. Students learn how to program by sitting down at their com- JOAN FEIGENBAUM puters and doing their program- The writer is the chair of the ming assignments — just as they Computer Science Department learn mathematics by doing their problem sets and lab sciences by doing their experiments. What Sexual stigmatization is a great University like Yale offers them is the opportunity to turn to not the solution their professors, teaching fellows, undergraduate learning assistants We are two Yale women, and and fellow students when they get we’d like to share the way that stuck on a homework assignment. Aaron Sibarium’s ‘18 column Professor Brian Scassellati and (“Reject hook-up culture,” Sept. Staff Lead Jason Hirschhorn have 22) made us feel. created a full program of sections, Sibarium’s views of men at Yale office hours and other face-to-face are both uncharitable and harmactivities in which Yale’s CS50 stu- ful. He writes that it is silly for dents are experiencing the joys of us to “expect people, least of all computing — with each other on 20-year-old men, to show the a daily basis and with their Harsame respect to someone they have vard counterparts at events like the just met as they would someone start-of-term puzzle day and the with whom they are in a commitend-of-term hackathon. It would ted relationship.” We believe that have been very foolish to ask Scas- every woman deserves the autosellati and Hirschhorn to spend matic respect owed to all humans, their time and effort on reinventing regardless of her relationship to the wheel of CS50 lectures rather the individual. It is not unrealistic than on these face-to-face activi- to believe that men will behave this ties in which students actually way — it is important to believe learn to program. that they will. Not doing so feeds It is worth noting that Yale the outdated narrative of male sexoffers online versions of many uality as an irrepressible, unconof its renowned lecture courses, trollable urge, and builds in an in subjects ranging from physexcuse for perpetrators. ics to philosophy to poetry — see Perhaps Sibarium meant that the Open Yale Courses website. even though all men should respect Presumably, students at univerwomen equally, they unfortunately sities throughout the world are do not. Even so, the solution is not benefiting from them, and faculty that we must all modify our lifemembers at those universities are styles. It is that the men of whom free to develop new instructional Sibarium writes should modify resources instead of reinventing their attitudes. It is not a victim’s wheels. Surely this is not a oneduty to protect his or herself. It is way street: Yale should partake of the duty of the perpetrator not to the cornucopia of online educacommit crimes. It is society’s duty tional offerings that is out there as to educate would-be perpetrawell as contribute to it. tors, believe survivors and create Finally, it is important to bear in a community in which men and mind that the Yale College faculty women can have safe, consenapproved the joint Harvard-Yale sual and shame-free sexual relaCS50 as a three-year experiment. tions. We hold the men of Yale to The time to assess the effectivea higher standard than Sibarium ness of its novel features, including does; it is the standard we think its hybrid online-plus-on-campus they deserve. instructional model and its essenSibarium goes on to suggest tial use of undergraduate learnthat social norms confining sex to ing assistants, is after the third monogamous relationships would offering of the course in Fall 2017, protect women against violence, not during the first month of the and that without these norms, first offering. I look forward to an men must “increasingly rely on

individual reason and restraint.” Sibarium fears that putting faith in the ability of men to exercise restraint is risky. This is an attitude that we find to be deeply problematic. Men are not animals. When a man preaches that women’s (and men’s) sexual liberty should be constrained, he must have a more compelling reason. The crucial hypothesis of Sibarium’s article is that the results of the sexual misconduct survey, that sexual violence is far from rare on this campus, support his idea of introducing “healthy constraints”. Sibarium argues that something is wrong with Yale’s sexual climate — we agree. We do not agree, however, that the explanation lies in excessive sexual liberty. As female Yalies, we can assure Sibarium that, far from the “you do you” affair he describes, female sexuality remains stigmatized. How many times do men refer to returning home after casual sex as doing a “walk of shame?” It is too often that we hear women and men refer to other women as “sluts.” We strongly disagree that increased liberty of female sexuality leads to increased sexual assault. The destigmatization of female sexuality has given us a voice, and slowly we are beginning to claim that voice. The more freedom women feel they have to express this sexuality, the less likely it will be that sexual violence goes unreported. We do not need more norms informing men and women that sexual expression is wrong, and misplacing blame for crimes. We act as if we exist in a sexually liberated culture, but we still judge each other with outdated condemnations. These social norms, deeply ingrained within us, must be eradicated. We must disagree with Sibarium as to the best trajectory for Yale. We are not heading in the wrong direction; we simply have not yet reached the final destination — an egalitarian and open sexual climate for all members of our community. HOLLY GEFFS AND CLARA DE PRETIS The writers are sophomores in Silliman and Calhoun colleges.

GUEST COLUMNIST B E N JA M I N NA D O L S KY

The strength of solidarity W

e have an activist student body on campus. Yalies, by and large, are incredibly passionate, curious and engaged with their community. When our administration drags its feet on financial aid or doesn’t invest sufficiently in the cultural houses, we stand up and demand attention. It’s laudable; student activism has made Yale a better place. Without students protesting administrative recalcitrance, the University would be a lot less representative of America and a lot less geared toward the needs and desires of the students it purports to serve. But there is one area where we’ve been far too quiet for far too long. I’m talking about resources to support students with physical disabilities. Full disclosure: I’m a sophomore who has been challenged with paraplegia since I was nine years old. I’m wheelchair-bound, so maybe I’m biased writing this column. But one thing I’ve learned from activism at Yale is the need for solidarity. Ultimately, we’re all voiceless in comparison to the Corporation or the administration unless we stand together. We may speak in terms of intersectionality when we discuss privilege, but when it comes to reform, it’s imperative that students primarily focused on Issue X still lend their support to those championing Issue Y and vice versa. We’re all unified in our desire for a more equitable Yale. I’m inspired every time I see the white divestment activist standing in solidarity with minority students in their struggle to get more funding for the cultural centers. Similarly, Yalies from all backgrounds were instrumental in forcing the University to hire additional therapists for Mental Health and Counseling. But, unlike racial minorities, women or even students who have needed mental health resources, the number of students who are physically disabled doesn’t pass the threshold necessary for campuswide outrage. I’m not complaining; I don’t think Yalies are apathetic about the challenges I face. But there’s a vast disconnect. Because there are so few students who are physically disabled at Yale relative to virtually any other demographic — I don’t know of more than a handful of students who are physically disabled across the University — it’s unsurprising that most students don’t have significant exposure to our specific challenges or needs. I would guess that nearly everyone at Yale knows someone who is LGBTQ; in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if three-quarters of students will have had at least one LGBTQ suitemate over their four years. That means nearly every student at Yale has been exposed to the obstacles facing the LGBTQ community. Consequently, they know how to be a sensitive ally — when should they protest, when should they stay silent and what resources the LGBTQ community still needs. The same could be said for virtually every other historically discriminated group. But too often, I’ve seen people want to help but shy away in fear of coming across as condescending.

WE'RE ALL UNIFIED IN OUR DESIRE FOR A MORE EQUITABLE YALE. So what are we to do when it’s unlikely you’ll become a close friend of someone who is physically disabled? I think that’s where social media can be a game-changer. There are already Facebook groups dedicated to students of color who are confronted with racism at Yale and beyond. I’m not suggesting we necessarily create a Facebook group just to hear me complain about the limited accessibility of our colleges (my particular entryway is the only one in all of Saybrook that can accommodate me) or how even the Yale Daily News’ building doesn’t have an elevator to the second floor.But social media can give a voice to groups that would otherwise be forgotten or isolated in their struggle for equal rights. But making structural renovations is expensive, and it’s hard for administrators to justify exorbitant costs to enhance the experience of one student who’ll graduate in four or fewer years. A similarly pernicious rationale — we don’t have the money — has been applied when administrators have resisted virtually every other student demand. Our school has an endowment over $25 billion. Yale can, if pushed hard enough and for long enough, make the changes that will quite literally level the playing field. But even beyond whether we have the money (we do), an institution shows its values by its actions and inactions. Schools such as Yale have historically been at the forefront of social change. We pushed for students to perform community service in high school, recruited the best and brightest from some of the poorest pockets of America and insisted on a student body more representative of this country. Unlike the causes of minorities or LGBTQ students, there will never be a critical number of physically disabled students on campus. If most students only stand up for Issue X once they befriend someone who is affected by it, then we’ll never get substantive reform for physically disabled students. In this case, we’re going to have to do more and we’re going to have to look actively for those who need our help, whether it’s on Facebook or in person. Otherwise we’ll always remain behind. BENJAMIN NADOLSKY is a sophomore in Saybrook College. Contact him at benjamin.nadolsky@yale.edu .


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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.” FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

Eidelson campaign accused of breaking election law COMPLAINT FROM PAGE 1 from the SEEC about the complaint. Bildner said his decision to file a complaint emanated from his desire to see “fair elections” in the city. He shared with the News a video, taken on primary day, of an Eidelson campaigner walking beyond the 75-foot line while wearing an Eidelson button and carrying a campaign clipboard. Though Bildner’s complaint

focuses only on alleged violations of the 75-foot rule, he said he saw other possible infractions — namely concerning non-ward residents voting — throughout the day. He said some people who live outside of Ward 1, many of whom were “visible supporters” of Eidelson, voted in the ward. Stark said he had also seen violations of the 75-foot line during the primary “many times.” He added that Bildner had informed him of the filing, but that Bildner

had not consulted with the campaign about making the filing. “This is a complaint that Rafi chose to make on his own, independent of the campaign, but it is something that I did see occur,” he said. “I don’t have any desire to draw out the primary — what’s done is done — but I hope the result of this is a commitment to free and fair campaigning and playing by the rules.” Though Bildner was a prominent volunteer on Stark’s cam-

paign team, he underscored that the complaint should not be construed as a political maneuver against Eidelson. The complaint, he said, is not an indictment of Eidelson’s candidacy or policies; rather, he said, it is meant to ensure that fair elections are conducted in the ward and throughout the city. Nathaniel Persily ’92, an election law professor at Stanford Law School, said the allegations are highly unlikely to impact the outcome of the primary election. He

added that generally, in cases such as this one, the punishment is usually a monetary fine; a rerun of the election is rare. Tyler Blackmon ’16, president of the Yale College Democrats and a staff columnist for the News, said he was displeased that the complaint was filed. He called on Democrats to put the primary behind them and move on to the general election against Republican Ugonna Eze ’16. Jacob Wasserman ’16, a Ward 1 co-chair,

described the complaint as “petty and churlish.” “Sarah won decisively, and really we all need to be moving on from this, because we have an election going on, and it’s becoming a distraction for actual issues in the city,” Blackmon said. Contact NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu and ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“Trees are Earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.” RABINDRANATH TAGORE BENGALI WRITER AND ARTIST

C L A R I F I CAT I O N THURSDAY, SEPT. 24

The article “Telepharmacy system to save Yale-New Haven Hospital time, money” mistakenly suggested Smilow introduced telepharmacy to avoid hiring more staff. Smilow later clarified that telepharmacy was not put in place to eliminate the need for staff.

Forestry dean to depart in June BY STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTER When Peter Crane first arrived in 2009 to become dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, he had to deal with the repercussions of the Great Recession. The financial problems of FES, a self-supported school, posed one of the toughest challenges during his time in the role, as he had to tell several qualified staff and faculty that they no longer had a job. On Sep. 11, 2015, six years after his arrival at Yale, Crane announced his upcoming departure from FES in an email to the school community. He will become the inaugural president of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, an estate of Rachel Lambert Mellon that includes extensive gardens and a library of landscape history and plant science. June 30, 2016 will be Crane’s last day of his deanship. According to colleagues, Crane’s time at Yale was marked by increased organizational infrastructure, improved relations with other graduate schools, financial stability and improved campus resources. Throughout his six years at the helm of the school, Crane said he has made students’ success his priority, which sometimes meant having to make tough calls. “Oftentimes it comes down to the question ‘Does this benefit the students or not?’ It’s not rocket science,” Crane said. “The job of any leader is often about judgment with all decisions, whether they are big ones or small ones, and trying to make the right calls on all those decisions for the betterment of the school.” FES professor Chad Oliver said in an email that all of Crane’s actions, including recruiting new diverse faculty and organizing staff into collaborative professional groups, helped elevate FES to a “well organized and fair” institution. According to Brad Gentry, associate dean of FES, Crane was crucial in helping forge close ties between FES and the School of Management. He added that Crane made a significant step in incorporating FES students into research on campus. Students always came first for Crane, Gentry said adding that

Crane’s main focus was to get students involved in faculty and staff research. Crane did not spend time trying to accomplish infeasible goals, Oliver said. “Dean Crane had an expression: ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good,’” Oliver said. “Although I was skeptical of this perspective in academic circles, Dean Crane applied it judiciously. [H]e accomplished many things that needed to be done.” Crane said he could not pass up the opportunity of becoming Oak Spring Garden Foundation president and is excited by the chance to create a new site committed to the history, uses and future of plants. University President Peter Salovey wrote, in an email to the Yale community, that a national search will commence shortly for Crane’s successor.

The job of any leader is … trying to make the right calls on all those decisions [big or small]. PETER CRANE Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Looking back on his time at Yale, Crane said he would most miss the cyclical nature of the school year. Every fall he met the new, nervous FES students. Three years later, he got to look out upon the sea of happy faces surrounded by their friends and family on commencement. “In my years at Yale I have learned from, and been supported by, many friends in FES and across the entire campus,” Crane wrote in his departure announcement. “It is my hope that these friendships will endure well into the future. With my deepest thanks for all we have accomplished so far, and all we will accomplish together in the coming year.” The School of Forestry and Environmental Studies was founded in 1900. Contact STEPHANIE ROGERS at stephanie.rogers@yale.edu .

Inequitable transit puts jobs out of reach BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE AND ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTERS At her first annual State of the City address in February 2014, Mayor Toni Harp identified transportation as more than just a city service issue. Transportation, she said, is a civil rights issue. Gov. Dannel Malloy echoed the mayor’s push, visiting New Haven in January to outline his transportation plans for the city and state. In the Elm City, specifically, the governor stressed promoting cyclist and pedestrian safety as key in helping improve transportation across the city. But, as transit services provide more than just a means of getting around the city, deficiencies in this area present barriers to entry for New Haven employment. A report published by DataHaven, a nonprofit data analytics organization, in December 2014 revealed that 84 percent of city residents who registered for CTWorks — a statewide job matching program — identified transportation deficiencies as a key obstacle to entering the New Haven workforce. Sixty percent identified child care, 23 percent identified a lack of education and 11 percent identified a lack of job experience as other factors preventing employment. “Adequate transportation is an economic and civil rights issue — I will not let buses and those who ride them be left behind,” Harp said last February. Harp added that she wanted to underscore that, without an improved bus system running across the city, New Haven cannot fulfill its promise of providing jobs and opportunity. Now, a year and a half later, as Harp prepares to run for re-election Nov. 3, progress has been made on several fronts. But inequitable transportation continues to stymie New Haven residents eager to enter the workforce. According to Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, transportation remains a priority for the state, and ought to remain a focal point for city policymakers alike. “Transportation is an economic lifeblood for people,” Blumenthal said. “It brings communities together and is an important factor in promoting civil rights.”

MEASURING TRANSIT INEQUITIES

In New Haven and similar small urban communities across the U.S. over the past 60 years, city officials have pushed for economic development in outer ring suburbs, in addition to the inner city and the inner ring — areas that border the downtown area — according to Doug Hausladen ’04, the director of the city’s Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking. But, he added, policymakers

in metropolitan areas, including New Haven, have not prioritized transportation planning in economic development strategies, leading to inequitable public transit routes. The necessity of public transportation is clear — close to 30 percent of New Haven residents do not have access to personal cars, Hausladen said. “People are commuting more than 90 minutes by bus to over 70 percent of jobs in New Haven,” he said. “We cannot ask our residents to do that. People are willing to think outside the car, but we have to give them the services to do that.” Indeed, expanding transportation routes to areas outside of downtown is an imminent challenge for the Elm City. According to DataHaven, only 4 percent of living-wage jobs are held by residents in the city’s “lowest-income neighborhoods.” Those areas are also home to more than half of the city’s population. Many of the residents in these communities are forced to search for jobs outside of the city, because 81 percent of the jobs that pay more than a living wage are held by those who live in the surrounding towns. Without adequate transit to those locations outside the downtown area, a significant percentage of residents are kept out of the workforce. DataHaven’s statistics show that even though three-quarters of New Haven residents live within walking distance of a bus stop that operates during rush hour, the need to transfer buses and routes makes the journey much more cumbersome. Only 27 percent of the jobs in a 90-minute commute radius are accessible by public transport for a typical resident of Greater New Haven. Residents who use CT Transit services are usually closer to transfer points, meaning that they are able to reach 44 percent of jobs. Nonetheless, more than half of jobs are difficult or impossible for city residents to access without a private car, significantly limiting employment opportunities. “The transit in New Haven, much like the transit in a lot of America, is not readily accessible for people to go to work,” said Ward 18 Alder Salvatore DeCola, who represents the Morris Cove area.

TRACKING PROGRESS

Blumenthal said that bolstering mass transit services around urban communities is especially important because these allow residents to seek jobs outside of their neighborhoods and cities. To that end, federal and state agencies plan to spend upward of $900,000 to encourage development along the Hartford Line commuter route, which connects New Haven with Springfield, Massachusetts.

Furthermore, Blumenthal highlighted the progress of another service, the New HavenSpringfield line, where a second set of tracks was added in August to encourage movement between the Elm City, Springfield and Hartford. The project, expected to cost $365 million, is part of a $100 billion statewide investment in transportation spearheaded by Malloy. The governor’s goals for the next 30 years include addressing the failing infrastructure across the state and providing improved links to other parts of the state for commuters. For New Haven, in particular, Harp said it is also important to focus on a centralized transit center, so that passengers can more readily transfer from one ride to the next. “We’re also working to realign certain bus routes to make them more responsive to the needs of transit users,” she said. Results from the DataHaven survey undergird Harp’s point. Thirty-five percent of respondents in the survey said public transportation was not sufficient for accessing job opportunities because the city’s current bus routes do not go to the places where the most jobs are. DeCola highlighted that the current bus routes are based on an antique system of trolley lines. “That doesn’t really work today because the world has changed,” he said. “Back then you could be living in New Haven and working in New Haven. That’s not the case anymore.” Other projects across the region, Blumenthal said, include an ongoing investment in the Metro-North Railroad, specifically to ensure the safety and reliability of the trains. In response to a crash last February, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have jointly loaned $967 million to Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road to implement Positive Train Control technology. The new technology — to be installed on trains — will automatically slow trains in cases of sudden malfunctions. But improvements to transportation systems, including rail lines and bus services, are not the only changes that need to be made to ensure equitable transit in the Elm City. Harp added that it was imperative that New Haven also works to engage in projects focused on improving the quality of streets. The Elm City is presently working on a “safe streets” initiative to enhance city roads and sidewalks. This, Harp said, will make walking a more accessible and secure option for residents who could walk to work. To that end, curb bump-outs, speed bumps, planters and other traffic-calming measures have been placed throughout the city with more to come. The city has also done more to identify and raise aware-

ness about its expanding network of bike lanes — and there are more to come. For Ward 22 residents, walking is already their primary mode of travel. Jeanette Morrison, the ward’s alder, explained that, for most people in the ward, working downtown or at Yale is only a 10–15 minute walk away. But, she said there is a greater issue at hand. Hiring locals would begin to reduce the need for people to travel all over the city to find work. “There’s a lot of jobs in New Haven, but the employers aren’t necessarily hiring New Haven residents,” she said.

“A MILLION-DOLLAR CALL FOR HELP”

The city has identified the problems in its existing transit system, Hausladen said, but the solution remains unclear. One proposal the City Planning Commission has repeatedly brought forward is incorporating a streetcar system into the city’s landscape. Rejected both in 2011 and 2012 by the Board of Alders, the idea of applying for a $760,000 federal grant returned to the table in 2014. The grant would allow for a research team to analyze the city’s potential for such a system. While the proposal initially suggested streetcars, the board moved to analyze the city’s transportation system as a whole. The federal grant will be supplemented by $100,000 of state funds and $90,000 of city money — totaling $950,000. This “million-dollar call for help” will take the form of the Federal Transit Administration Alternatives Analysis program, Hausladen said. Through the Alternatives Analysis program, the FTA will finance a comprehensive evaluation of transit needs in New Haven, highlighting areas of inefficiency in the city’s existing infrastructure and identifying ways to promote multimodal alternatives to traditional transit options. As a pursuit of intermodality, Hausladen said, city officials should encourage walking and biking as modes of transportation. He said that, currently, only 14 percent of city residents walk to and from work and less that 3 percent of residents bike. The FTA study, Hausladen added, will fill gaps in city officials’ understanding. “We have an opportunity in New Haven to really tackle intermodality,” he said. “It’s time to rethink the way we handle transit in our region, but we’re not allknowing.” Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu and ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .

With new symposium, more opportunities for STEM students BY BRENDAN HELLWEG AND CAMERON HILL STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Sept. 7, the Yale Undergraduate Research Association’s first research symposium gave Yale STEM students an opportunity they had not had before — a chance to distinguish themselves at a research symposium at their own school. The symposium awarded one grand prize and a number of honorable mentions, and, like other science symposia, offered students the opportunity to beef up their resumes. Until this month, Yale was one of the only schools among its peer institutions to not offer a science symposium — something STEM students interviewed said put them at a distinct resume disadvantage, making it more difficult to successfully apply for jobs or graduate school. “In high school, there are things that are deliverables that show that you are good at something, or better than others at something,” said chemistry major Andrew Saydjari ’18. But when STEM students arrive at Yale, he said, that changes. While some students in the humanities receive awards for exceptional essays, said Sayd-

jari, there are no awards for similarly well-done problem sets or tests. As a result, students who do exceptional work in their classes do not receive any recognition for the work besides a letter grade. This lack of recognition for the top students in classes was not a big problem when top grades were not as common, but grade inflation has changed that, he added. An “A” in Math 120, for instance, no longer equates to outstanding work, he said. According to math major Alois Cerbu ’18, one of the ways that students are able to stand out is through a summer research project. But summer only comes once a year, and it is not always clear on resumes how involved the research was. YURA was founded in part to address those issues. It was created in the spring 2015 by five Yale undergraduates as an avenue for Yale’s undergraduate researchers to collaborate and for Yale students to learn more about research opportunities in the University. The goal of YURA and its research symposium, explained Jingjing Xiao ’18, YURA’s director of communications, is to allow Yale’s “community of researchers to meet with each other and talk with each other in a way that they’ve never had an

opportunity to do before.” In contrast to Yale, where this is the first year a research symposium has been available to undergraduates, other peer universities have held such conferences for years. Harvard began its symposium in 2007 and Dartmouth began its own in 1992. Yale’s symposium, a daylong conference with two poster sessions, was intended both to help introduce freshmen to research opportunities at Yale and to promote discussion among upperclassmen in the various STEM departments. Several students interviewed suggested that they felt it would be important for people unfamiliar with their lines of research to understand their projects, particularly in applying for grants. “The symposium was a great step forward — that Yale didn’t make — in terms of having students get recognition for their research,” said Saydjari, referring to the fact that the University itself did not host the symposium. Instead, it was structured as an undergraduate extracurricular activity. Saydjari, who won first place in the symposium, said these sorts of small awards were particularly useful because larger accomplishments like pub-

WA LIU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The Yale Undergraduate Research Association held its first research symposium on Sept. 7. lications in journals can take months or even a year to come to fruition. Because of this, a junior doing research over the summer might not have a paper published in time to apply for grad-

uate school. But with the symposium, a junior will be able to present research to prospective employers or schools. Approximately 100 students attended YURA’s first under-

graduate research symposium. Contact BRENDAN HELLWEG at brendan.hellweg@yale.edu and CAMERON HILL at cameron.hill@yale.edu .


PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Money is a great servant but a bad master.” FRANCIS BACON ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN

With 11.5 percent return, endowment surpasses $25bn mark greater than Yale’s. Harvard, whose endowment now stands at $37.6 billion, saw a 5.8 percent return. The University of Texas system, which holds $26.6 billion in assets, reported a weighted 3.5 percent return for its two funds. According to William Jarvis ’77, managing director of the Commonfund Institute, among endowment returns publicly released, Yale has posted the third highest rate — surpassed only by Bowdoin College, which produced a 14.4 percent return for its $1.4 billion endowment, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which saw a 13.2

percent return on its $13.5 billion endowment. Other schools, such as Princeton and Stanford, have yet to release their numbers as of Thursday evening. Yale’s performance also handily beat many of the industry averages released, including the 3.6 percent median return for endowments with more than $500 million in value, according to an estimate by the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service. The 11.5 percent return also outpaced the preliminary 5.6 percent average return for endowments over $3 billion, which was reported by Cambridge Associates, a leading

GRAPH ASSET ALLOCATION TARGETS FOR FISCAL 2016 BONDS AND CASH

DOMESTIC EQUITY ABSOLUTE RETURN

NATURAL RESOURCES

LEVERAGED BUYOUTS

REAL ESTATE VENTURE CAPITAL

FOREIGN EQUITY MIRANDA ESCOBAR/PRODUCTION & DESIGN ASSISTANT

investment advisor to foundations and endowments. Still, Jarvis stressed that rather than simply focus on the year-to-year “returns derby,” it is more important to consider Yale’s endowment growth over time. “There are two pieces here that are important. One is, yes, this is a nice high investment return,” Jarvis said. “The second, though, is that Yale’s combination of asset allocation decisions and manager access enables it to make a claim about having lower volatility of returns over time, which facilitates this compounding that leads to wealth building.” According to the Yale Investments Office release, over the past decade, the endowment has grown from $15.2 billion to $25.6 billion. Over the long term, many of Yale’s asset classes beat their industry benchmarks. Over the last 10 years, for instance, domestic equities returned 12.3 percent, beating the benchmark by 4.1 percent annually. Foreign equities had returns of 17.4 percent, outpacing the benchmark by 8.4 percent annually. Real estate, which accounts for 13 percent of Yale’s portfolio for fiscal 2016, returned 6.2 percent and natural resources, which make up 8.5 percent of the portfolio, posted returns of 10.5 percent. The top performing asset class listed, however, was ven-

High assault rates pervade Ivies

GRAPH ENDOWMENT RETURNS BY SCHOOL

15 12

percent

ENDOWMENT FROM PAGE 1

9 6 3 0

Yale

Harvard Dartmouth MIT

ture capital, which returned 18 percent over the last decade — nudging out the returns on foreign equities and accounting for 14 percent of the Yale portfolio, the report stated. Revenue from the endowment provides a critical resources for the University and for the 2016 fiscal year, spending from the endowment is projected to be $1.2 billion, accounting for more than a third of the University’s net revenues. This endowment distribution has nearly doubled

Bowdoin University Stanford of Texas

in the past decade and is used for such priorities as “meeting full financial need of every student enrolled in Yale College,” Thursday’s release stated. Still, the future of returns for the 2016 fiscal year are far from certain. Given the recent fluctuations in global markets — coupled with the uncertainty in the behavior of the Federal Reserve — Jarvis warned that endowments may face some difficulties in the coming year.

Yale reported the highest rate of sexual assault in the Ivy League, followed by Dartmouth and Harvard. AAU SURVEY FROM PAGE 1 tion or sexual touching involving physical force or incapacitation.” This number is five percentage points higher than the average rate of 23.1 percent across the 27 schools that participated in the April survey. The Ivy League school that fared the best was Cornell, at 22.6 percent. But this rate was almost double the prevalence reported by the California Institute of Technology, which had the lowest in the AAU survey. Seven other participating schools also had lower rates than Cornell. Princeton was the only Ivy League school that did not participate in the survey. Attention to sexual misconduct on Ivy League campuses is not new: The Ancient Eight have long faced national scrutiny for the way they handle complaints of sexual misconduct, partially due to their visibility in the world of higher education. This national scrutiny seems to have pervaded the campuses of many Ivy League schools — Yale was the subject of a Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigation in 2011, and Harvard Law School just reached a resolution agreement with the OCR in December. This scrutiny — which has also led to increased programming and education programs on these campuses — has possibly led to increased identification of sexual assault, according to Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy. The three Ivy League schools that reported the highest rates of sexual assault — Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard, respectively — actually had the highest student participation rates in the AAU survey. At Yale and Harvard,

over 50 percent of students participated, and just over 40 percent participated at Dartmouth. The average response rate across the 27 participating universities, meanwhile, was 19.3 percent. In emails to their respective institutions, both Harvard President Drew Faust and Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway wrote that high response rates were positive indicators of student engagement on the topic of sexual misconduct. Lake speculated that increased conversation about the topic — partially resulting from the Ivy League’s emphasis on training and education — could make students at elite institutions more sensitive to behaviors that might constitute sexual misconduct, thus contributing to the higher reported rates of assault. Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd acknowledged that such an outcome was conceivable, but impossible to prove with existing data. Lake emphasized that the higher numbers of reported assaults at elite institutions are not necessarily statistically significant discrepancies, noting that most schools reported rates of sexual assault in the same decile as at Yale. Moreover, according to some administrators and experts in higher education law, there are multiple causes for hope within the otherwise concerning data about Yale. For example, although overall numbers for Yale women who have experienced penetration due to force or incapacitation are higher than the AAU aggregate, when the numbers are broken down by class year, freshmen actually reported a lower prevalence of such assault than the survey average. A possible cause for this difference, according to Boyd, is

that many University resources implemented to address sexual misconduct — such as the 2011 creation of the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, or the Communication and Consent Educators program — may have begun to effect a broader, cultural change across campus. Those effects, though, would likely have been felt more by members of the class of 2018 than the class of 2015. These programs may actually lead other schools — which may have reported lower rates of sexual assault on their campuses — to look to Yale for guidance in developing programming, according to Senior Advisor to the President Martha Highsmith. “We have considerable expertise in-house, and some of our programs are models for other schools,” she said. “I suspect others will be calling us for help on other campuses as well.” In fact, Cornell just recently introduced “social consultant” positions on its own campus, which are modeled after the role CCEs play at Yale. As more schools implement training programs, Lake said, the number of students reporting sexual misconduct will probably rise as students become more aware of what constitutes inappropriate behavior — and then when the numbers begin to fall, the Ivies will be the group leading the way. “Given the incredible levels of intervention that are coming in at Yale and Harvard, it would be unlikely that these systems wouldn’t be impactful,” he said. “I think Yale’s experience on sexual misconduct will be a case study in the future for how to handle cases like this.” Contact VIVIAN WANG at vivian.y.wang@yale.edu .

Contact LARRY MILSTEIN at larry.milstein@yale.edu .

Wolfson reflects on being gay at Yale WOLFSON FROM PAGE 1

KEN YANAGISAWA/ PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

“Although fiscal 2015 was in many ways a challenging year, the June 30 line was drawn before the volatility in the recent few months, so the challenges remain coming into 2016,” Jarvis said. “And I think it is fair to say that all portfolios and chief investment officers are going to have their assumptions tested in the fiscal year that we currently are in now.”

net. They popped open a bottle of champagne and Wolfson made a quick toast. Then, he said, staff members “ran to their battle stations,” he said, sending out press releases, fielding questions and familiarizing themselves on the decision’s specifics. Wolfson wrote in a New York Times op-ed the next day that he always believed they would win but did not expect to cry. But he did cry, he recalled, sitting at his desk, reading the marriage decision whose language harkened back to so many of the battles fought and cases won — arguments he had presented himself. “I realized a day or two later — I had thought I was crying because of all these memories, and associations, and joy, and I was. But I also was feeling tremendous relief,” Wolfson said. “I always believed we would win. I always believed even if we didn’t win this time, we would still win. But I was so profoundly relieved to no longer have to keep fighting.” Wolfson had been fighting for decades. By the time the Supreme Court came out this summer, it had been 12 years since Freedom to Marry was founded and 32 years since he wrote his 140page Harvard Law School thesis on the right of gay couples to marry. Decades ago — before he became the selfdescribed “Mr. Marriage” for his position at the head of the movement, before he was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, before he received the Barnard Medal of Distinction alongside President Barack Obama — Wolfson was a closeted history major in Silliman College who dated women even though he knew he was gay. He said that, back then, he “didn’t know how to take the first step” toward expressing his sexuality. In April 1977, Wolfson attended one of the first gay rights rallies on Cross Campus, organized in part by History and American Studies professor George Chauncey ’77 GRD ’89, who now teaches the popular lecture “U.S. Lesbian and Gay History.” But Wolfson didn’t participate. It was not until after graduating college, when he joined the Peace Corps, that he first began to explore his sexuality.

I always believed that even if we didn’t win this time, we would still win. EVAN WOLFSON ’78 Founder and CEO, Freedom to Marry Chauncey recalls seeing Wolfson, quiet, on the grass as well. Chauncey noted that many advocates in the LGBT movement have come out of Yale, but added that many of the movement’s staunch opponents have as well. The advocacy likely comes more out of a sense of civic duty instilled while on campus than out from the ambience of Yale, Chauncey said, but he added that the campus’s climate at the time likely shaped students’ ideas of which causes to focus on in their advocacy. In the 1970s and 80s, the campus hosted rallies, petition drives and at least one sit-in at Woodbridge Hall to push the University towards adopting an anti-discrimination policy. There

were discussion groups in residential colleges, film events, poster campaigns. The LGBTQ Coop’s dances, drawing hundreds of students, were among the most popular campus events, Chauncey said. “I don’t think many of the people who went on to become nationally prominent LGBT rights activists were gay political activists as students — some hadn’t even come out yet,” Chauncey said. “But they must have been influenced by all of the lesbian and gay political activism they saw at Yale when they were here.” Ten years later, Marc Solomon ’89 — who would go on to become Wolfson’s colleague at Freedom to Marry — witnessed similar LGBT activism in the dining halls of residential colleges, on Cross Campus, along with the early years of Yale’s reputation for “one in four, maybe more” gay students. But Solomon was also not out during his years at Yale, or indeed, until about a decade later. During his time at Yale, before his politics “changed 180 degrees,” Solomon led a Connecticut students group campaigning for Republican Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential bid. Solomon honed the political skills that he would one day use at Freedom to Marry by working for the conservative politicians that he would, ironically, soon come to oppose. “In retrospect, I really think that I chose to be conservative or Republican as a means of trying not to be gay,” Solomon said. “I wasn’t out then, I was very closeted. I was focused on denying my sexuality … I thought if I identified with conservatives, with tough guys, that that was an antidote, potentially, to being gay. Clearly it wasn’t.” By 2003, Solomon found himself squarely on the opposite side of the aisle, working in Boston with groups advocating for the right for gay couples to marry. Attending straight friends’ weddings — and recognizing he didn’t yet have the right to have a ceremony himself — made the issue feel especially personal, even before he came out, Solomon said. In 2004, he devoted himself to the issue full time. Wolfson launched Freedom to Marry in 2003, and Solomon came on board in 2010. The organization helped win triumphs in California, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and more, but it also saw defeats — many of them in those same states, with same-sex marriage legislation attacked in the courts. “I think we made a really good team,” Solomon said. “What [Wolfson] is great at is making a powerful case for marriage — keeping a movement of people focused on the cause, inspiring people to the cause … What I brought to the table was really the strategic knowhow of building campaigns.” But in June, the organization reached its goal, and now the robust political shop that Wolfson and Solomon built is getting ready to close. In the next few months, Freedom to Marry will continue to wind down, sharing lessons learned and transferring assets. The organization is likely to deposit its papers at Yale, just yards from where Wolfson once stood quietly at a rally. “Now I begin a process of stepping back and thinking about, Who am I when I’m not Mr. Marriage?” Wolfson asked. “I want to keep helping in some way, but I don’t know what that is yet.” Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

NEWS

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” OVID ROMAN POET

Activists protest Thai Taste BY ERICA PANDEY STAFF REPORTER Roughly 20 protesters demonstrated outside of Thai Taste late Thursday evening, claiming wage theft and calling on pedestrians to boycott the restaurant. Local activists from Unidad Latina en Accion, a New Haven-based immigrants’ rights organization, stood outside the Chapel Street restaurant holding signs and distributing flyers. The protesters accused Roger Jaruch, who owns both Thai Taste and Rice Pot on State Street, of stealing more than $37,000 in wages from Rafael Alvarez and Eufrasio Roblero, two former Rice Pot employees. According to Jaruch, who denies all accusations of wage theft, Thursday’s protest was the fourth in recent weeks. A Thai Taste employee who asked to remain anonymous said she called the police Thursday evening after observing that ULA protesters were blocking the sidewalk and disrupting customers. “The times that we are busy, they just show up,” Jaruch said. “They should bring this to court and fight this in court. I can prove them wrong there.”

[Jaruch] paid $400 for 60 hours for work, so now ex-employees are claiming their money. MARCOS RODRIGUEZ Organizer, Unidad Latina en Acción Two New Haven police officers were dispatched to Thai Taste, and an additional two officers stopped at the scene after noticing commotion while driving by. One of the officers, who asked to remain anonymous because the New Haven Police Department asks that officers not speak to the press, said that while the ULA organizers are free to protest outside Thai Taste, it is illegal for them to block the sidewalk or the restaurant entrance. The officer added that the protesters are also not allowed to enter the

establishment. The Thai Taste employee who wished to remain anonymous said the protesters had come inside the restaurant during each of the previous three demonstrations. Marcos Rodriguez, a ULA organizer, led last night’s protest, using a megaphone to lead chants of “Boycott Thai Taste!” “[Jaruch] pays very, very low wages,” Rodriguez said. “He paid $400 dollars for 60 hours of work, so now ex-employees are claiming their money.” Over the summer, Jaruch received three notices from ULA, the most recent of which was dated Aug. 5. The notices, obtained by the News, claimed that Jaruch owed Alvarez, a cook at Rice Pot, more than $16,000 in unpaid wages; it also said Jaruch owed more than $19,000 to Roblero, a dishwasher at the same restaurant. Each notice warned that if Jaruch did not mail checks with the specified amounts to ULA’s headquarters on Howe Street, the organization would file complaints with the Connecticut Department of Labor. Jaruch said he does not know why the protesters are choosing to demonstrate outside Thai Taste even though both Alvarez and Roblero are former Rice Pot employees. He speculated that Thai Taste’s more central location may have been a factor, as Rice Pot is located in East Rock. Jaruch added that he believes Alvarez is claiming wage theft to acquire funds to pay off existing hospital bills. “He just needs the money,” Jaruch said. “That’s all.” Neither Alvarez nor Roblero were present at Thursday’s protest, and they could not be reached for comment following the protest. Before leaving the scene at roughly 8:30 p.m., the officers advised Jaruch and the Thai Taste employee, who was noticeably distraught, to call them if the demonstrators violate any laws surrounding protests in the future. Contact ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .

Yale-NUS pilots peer counselors BY RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTER The Wellness Center at YaleNUS contains a small, white-walled room with a fuzzy rug, two small couches, pillows, a tea kettle and a small stuffed animal. Here, five nights a week, Yale-NUS students can come to talk with the certainty that their peers will be there to listen. This fall, students at Yale-NUS launched the college’s first peer counseling program, P.S. We Care. The planning for the program started two years ago, when the group’s leaders were freshmen. Now juniors, the program leaders organize counseling walk-in hours from 9 p.m. to midnight on weekdays — hours when the campus Wellness Center is closed. While group organizers, student counselors and Yale-NUS faculty members spoke positively about mental health and wellness resources already available to students, many spoke of P.S. We Care as an intermediary between students and the college’s professional counseling staff. “We’re here to listen,” said Jolanda Nava YNUS ’17, one of P.S. We Care’s founding organizers. “We find that people — when they are upset — what they need is a space to say it out loud and sort out their thoughts.” Nava, along with Christopher Tee YNUS ’17, another group leader, said P.S. We Care’s job is not to solve students’ problems, but rather to provide a non-judgmental space where any personal issues can be discussed. Over the past three years, peer counselors received training from professional counselors at the Wellness Center and outside the college, as well as from students who participated in peer counseling programs in their high schools. Sha-En Yeo, senior manager of the Yale-NUS Wellness Center, said one of the major benefits of the peer counseling program is that it holds drop-in hours after the Wellness Center has closed. Students also often have to book appointments to see a professional counselor at the

Wellness Center, whereas P.S. We Care functions solely on a walk-in basis. Yeo said training sessions for the peer counselors included sessions targeted at identifying symptoms of depression and improving active listening skills, as well as role-plays in which the counselors practice dealing with stress or relationship issues. Training took place weekly starting in the fall of 2013 as the group grew from roughly 10 to 15 counselors. Peer counselors may also refer counselees to the Wellness Center, though they are not obligated to report sessions to professional counselors, except in the case of potentially dangerous circumstances. The opening of the peer counseling program also casts light on how Yale-NUS will approach various issues surrounding mental health as the years pass. Nava said her group is still grappling with what types of policies would apply to a student who took a semester off for mental health reasons, for example. But, despite the college’s relative youth, students and college rectors alike spoke positively about mental health resources already available to students. Brian McAdoo, rector of the YaleNUS residential college Elm College, said that in addition to Wellness Center resources, students at Yale-NUS have access to counseling services at the neighboring National University of Singapore, as well as a group housed at the Singapore American Club that specializes in issues relating to an international clientele. In addition, professional counselors from the Yale-NUS Wellness Center hold a 30-minute meeting with every freshman during the first semester. “Given our smaller student body, we have been able to reach out to each and every student by taking a proactive approach,” Yeo said. “Given that other universities have a larger population, they will probably need to approach mental health and wellness differently.” Because of the college’s small student body, Nava and Tee said

peer counselors cannot maintain the same level of anonymity as, for example, Walden Peer Counselors — Yale’s undergraduate anonymous and confidential peer counseling service. Even so, Nava, Tee and two other peer counselors interviewed said they do not see a lack of total anonymity as being an issue given the college’s community feel. Peer counselor Joceline Yong YNUS ’18 said she originally joined the group because she was interested in receiving proper training in listening and counseling skills. “I think that peer counseling is a unique service that complements the existing resources available through the Wellness Center rather than providing something that attempts to rival or replace existing resources,” Yong said. “There are occasions where simply having a nonjudgmental listening ear, a fresh perspective or an objective thirdparty opinion is what people need, rather than long-term professional help.” Jordan Bovankovich YNUS ’18 also said she does not see P.S. We Care as a reaction to the lack of mental health resources on campus, but rather as a different kind of resource to reinforce what was already in place. Bovankovich said she thinks peer counseling is a valuable resource on campus because it provides a platform free of hierarchy for students to express their thoughts. But the president of the college’s LGBTQ awareness and advocacy group, the G Spot — who wanted to remain anonymous for privacy reasons — said there may be reservations within the LGTBQ community toward approaching a peer counselor since the community is small and there may be confidentiality concerns. He said that even while he wants to support the peer counseling group, he does not think these concerns are unique to the LGBTQ community. As it grows toward a student body of 1,000, Yale-NUS currently has three classes of undergraduates. Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .


PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.” JANE ADDAMS AMERICAN SOCIAL WORKER AND SUFFRAGIST

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need … there’s a lot of desire on the part of the staff for that.” Beacom may get his wish: There is commercial space for lease in Science Park, and retailers are sure to eventually recognize the profit potential presented by hundreds of hungry workers, especially if G Cafe proves successful. With the opening of Winchester Lofts, the area will transform from a 9-to-5 zone to a 24-hour community, presenting even more opportunity for restaurateurs. Even excluding Winchester Lofts, the movement of Yale jobs to Science Park could change residential patterns. Kevin Glick, head of digital information systems at Sterling’s Manuscripts and Archives Library, lived until June 2014 in a Wooster Square condo with his wife, who works at the Beinecke. They liked being able to walk to work and avoid driving. When the couple found out her job would be moved to Science Park, they realized the walk would be too far from Wooster Square. With assistance from the Yale Homebuyer Program, they decided to purchase a home in Dixwell, on Frances Hunter Drive just south of Monterey Place. In the year that they have been on Frances Hunter, there have been three home sales in the vicinity, all to Yale employees, Glick said. Prior to that turnover, he estimates there were one or two other Yale employees on the block. Nemerson said he believes homeownership is rising on Henry Street and Division Street, near Science Park, helping to make the neighborhood more “solid.” Despite the fact that the Winchester Lofts and Salas-Romer’s new development will have rents higher than the area’s average, Nemerson is not concerned about long-time residents being priced out, because the developments are adding to the housing stock instead of replacing more affordable homes. Foskey-Cyrus, however, remains unimpressed by the developments in the area. The biggest impact she has seen so far is worse traffic. What she would like to see — what everyone would like to see from Yale, it seems — is jobs.

HOW SHOULD YALE HIRE?

In June, two days after Alexander promised 500 jobs for New Haven residents over the next two years, 700 people, representing labor unions, religious groups and local activist organizations marched to call on local employers to do more for the Elm City. The group ended at the site of the new colleges — a choice made to underscore the fact that city residents will be watching closely to see how Yale fills positions at its new real estate, said Emily Ferrigno, a library services assistant in the Music Library, a member of Local 34’s executive board and a library steward for the union. The statistics the marchers cited were bleak: Unemployment among people of color in New Haven is 20 percent, according to Scott Marks, a community activist and founder of New Haven Rising, a local labor organization. In this climate, the construction of the new colleges is both an opportunity and a test for Yale. But if neighbors feel they did not get a fair shake when it comes to applying for jobs inside the colleges, the occasion could be a bit-

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at least some of whom, if the bumper stickers and parking passes on cars in the parking lot are any indication, have an affiliation with Yale. In June, the New Haven Register reported that 1,500 people, including 800 from Yale’s libraries and IT departments, work in Science Park. The new residential colleges will not be much farther from the offices of Science Park than they are from Cross Campus. With the upcoming influx of students to the new colleges as well as the recent shift of Yale employees to Science Park, the center of campus is shifting northward. The character of the neighborhood between the two may change as well, as more Yale affiliates move into the area, accelerating a population transformation that has been in motion for decades. Marlene Tureck and her husband own seven homes on Winchester Avenue, within a few blocks of the construction. When they first moved to the street in 1985, there were hardly any Yale graduate students living there. The area had “a really bad reputation,” Tureck said, that led people to avoid it. But that has changed over the past 30 years, and today, many of the residents are graduate students renting rooms. “We probably started some of that, getting the graduate students here,” Tureck said. “We’d put an ad in the Yale Housing Office.” Demographic shifts have been gradual, as has the neighborhood’s physical refurbishment. The four blocks of Winchester from Sachem Street to Science Park, and on Mansfield Street over the same distance, have been repaired over the past 20 years. Like Ozalp, Tureck is hopeful the opening of the colleges will better the neighborhood’s reputation, and in turn the value of property. “I like the neighborhood, I like my neighbors, and I wish everybody would stop thinking East Rock was the only place you could live,” she said. The growth of Science Park seems to be proving that development begets more development. On Monday, a second location of the G Cafe will open its doors just across the Farmington Canal Trail from Science Park. Developer Juan Salas-Romer of NHR Properties bought the property, which will also include apartments, because he could see that the area was developing, he told the News in January. Before Salas-Romer purchased the space, it had sat empty for several years. At least one person is already eagerly awaiting the G Cafe opening: Matthew Beacom, head of technical services at the Beinecke, who has worked at Science Park since April. Though the workspace at Science Park has elements that “are really terrific,” one of the disadvantages is the lack of retail and food options in the vicinity. Beacom said G Cafe will provide a bakery and coffee shop within walking distance of his office — something currently lacking. There is the Chinese restaurant Ivy Bistro, a convenience store called Vinny’s Food Store, Paula’s Science Park Cafe for lunch, and very little else. “We’d love there to be coffee shops, restaurants,” Beacom said. “It’d be great if there was a bank or something like that nearby. All those things that you occasionally

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Today, thanks to the deal, the new colleges are under construction, and Scantlebury Park plays host to children and families enjoying the playground, picnic tables and water features. According to Morrison, the park “brings two sides of the ward together.” In a sense, the park paved the way for the colleges. Without it — and without the $10 million investment — the University would not have had the uninterrupted space to build. And without the park, along with Yale Health and the Rose Center, future members of the class of 2020 may have had concerns about moving into brand-new colleges adjacent to empty space and a neighborhood, as Morand said, “once dominated by outdated housing blocks, barren land and wasted industrial facilities.” Morrison and Dyson both say the chatter they have heard from residents about the colleges is largely positive. Morrison praised Lauren Zucker and Karen King at the Office of New Haven and State Affairs for keeping her in the loop as development proceeds, and she dedicates a portion of her ward newsletter to “News from Yale.” Despite the links between Yale and Dixwell, it is clear that a towngown divide persists. On campus, the new residential colleges are a focus of debate and conversation, something to look at during a long walk up Science Hill. But Of 15 Dixwell residents surveyed in Scantlebury Park and Monterey Place, only one — 69-yearold Danette Chatfield — knew what was being built on the parcel of land across the Farmington Canal Trail. James Hillhouse High School student Carlos Mejia, 16, was excited to find out the exposed beams and tractors will give way to dorms. “I’d like that to happen,” he said. “We’ll see different people.” Chatfield was not so sanguine. Sitting outside a home on Webster Street, gazing out at the yellow construction cranes in the distance, she expressed unease about Yale’s increasing presence in the neighborhood where she has lived since the 1960s. “I think Yale is taking over New Haven,” she said. “But that’s a good thing,” countered her neighbor, 72-year-old Rosalind Rogers, citing the park, the security of the Yale Police Station and the possibility of jobs. “Next think you know they’ll be coming up here,” Chatfield continued. “If we’re not dead by then.”

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Michael Morand ’87 DIV ’93 stands on the fourth floor of the parking deck at Yale Health. Facing north, he sees Scantlebury Park, its basketball court and playground crawling with neighborhood children. Beyond the park are the tidy homes and quiet streets of Monterey Place, a mixed-income housing development. Trees obscure the view somewhat, but in the distance are the office buildings of Science Park. Behind him is the construction site of the new colleges, humming with activity on a Tuesday afternoon. The panorama is very different from what one would have seen at this spot during Morand’s undergraduate days in the mid-1980s. When he was in college, the highrise Elm Haven public housing complex occupied the space where Monterey Place sits; The New York Times called Elm Haven “notorious,” and even now residents recall the project as a locus of poverty and bleakness. There was a commercial laundry facility where Yale Health and the Rose Center lie, and abandoned train tracks running through the neighborhood, going nowhere. At his 25th Yale graduation

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graduates will mean for people who live nearby, in Dixwell to the northwest and Newhallville to the north. But already, it is clear that the buildings will influence people well beyond their brick walls and Gothic towers. First, there is the sheer size of the endeavor: approximately $500 million in construction expenditures, “orders of magnitude more than most projects” in New Haven, according to Matthew Nemerson SOM ’81, the city’s director of economic development. At least some of that money will flow directly into the pockets of New Haveners; in early June, Bruce Alexander ’65, University Vice President and Director of New Haven and State Affairs, pledged to hire 500 city residents over the next two years, including 100 construction workers. There is the promise of jobs inside the colleges after they open. And there is the near-certainty that students who live a 10-minute walk north of Cross Campus will interact with spaces and places many undergraduates today simply do not encounter, such as the basketball court at Scantlebury Park and the adjacent Farmington Canal Trail. Then there are facts with murkier implications. Hundreds of Yale employees have moved into offices in Science Park, and they are eager to see more retail options in the area. Within the last year, the first residents have moved into the Winchester Lofts across the street from Science Park. About 20 percent of the apartments have been reserved as affordable housing units, but the market rate for a one-bedroom apartment starts at $1,480 a month. Amid all of this change is the persistent reality that in Dixwell, 54 percent of residents are low-income, and in Newhallville, which surrounds Science Park and extends to the north, 58 percent are, according to DataHaven, a nonprofit data analysis organization. Already, there is disagreement about how to interpret these facts and draw conclusions about what the colleges mean in the context of the other forces shaping the neighborhoods. Alder Jeanette Morrison, who represents Ward 22, which includes Silliman, Timothy Dwight, Morse, Ezra Stiles and the site of the new colleges, lives near the construction. “I watch the building process, and I get excited,” Morrison said, noting that the colleges are slated to open in 2017, the same year as the refurbished Dixwell Community Center or Q House. She sees opportunities for connections and relationships between students and people who live nearby. Newhallville Alder Brenda Foskey-Cyrus, whose ward encompasses Science Park and the Winchester Lofts — located about half a mile north of the construction — is not so sure that development will lead to benefits for current residents of the neighborhood. If any of her constituents have gotten jobs or found a better home because of it, she does not know about it. She said she keeps a close eye on the influence of Yale and Yale affiliates in her ward. “I’m not going to go to sleep on ’em,” Foskey-Cyrus said. “Cause you don’t know what’s gonna happen when you wake up.”

reunion, Morand brought some friends to the area to show them the community meeting center inside the Rose Center, which houses the Yale Police Station and the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center next to Yale Health. “I asked my classmates how many of them remembered being at the corner of Ashmun and Bristol streets during any of their four years in Yale College,” Morand said. “Not surprisingly, none of them had been.” Today, no one questions Yale’s choice to construct the new colleges at that very intersection. But that might not have been the case in generations past, when the contrast between a downtrodden neighborhood and student residences boasting grand pianos and stately courtyards would have been jarring. Though Yale has not been the only driver of transformation in this area over the past two decades, it has played a major role in shaping the neighborhood. Turning to face the construction, Morand described campus expansion as a “strategically incremental” process. Even so, over time, the incremental steps can add up to significant change. “If you had told almost anyone that on a Tuesday afternoon you could stand here and see bicyclists, office workers, neighborhood kids, freely, safely, seemingly happily enjoying this common space, I don’t think anybody would have believed it was possible,” Morand said, identifying the mid-2000s as the turning point at which it became possible to envision the present reality of the space. “At the same time, this development [the new colleges] will be one that reinforces [the strength of the neighborhood].” Perhaps the most important factor behind the area’s transition from a no-go zone for Yale students to a vibrant neighborhood was the demolition of Elm Haven and the construction of Monterey Place. Elm Haven was built in the 1940s and city planners envisioned it as a “modern utopia” alternative to slum housing. But as the city went into decline after World War II, the vision proved untenable. Bill Dyson, who moved to New Haven in 1970 and has lived in Newhallville since, served in the Connecticut General Assembly for 32 years. Dyson recalled the Elm Haven high-rises as a vast space filled with poor people, lacking opportunities and even a grocery store. “You had at one point pockets of despair that existed in fairly close proximity to Yale,” Dyson said. “I call it despair and the absence of jobs and things just looking depressing and bleak for people.” The high-rises were demolished in 1988. With the help of federal funding, what eventually took their place was the mixedincome Monterey Place. The units include affordable rentals, affordable homeownership options and market-rate housing. As the transition occurred, Yale began to play a small role in Dixwell’s housing market. The Yale Homebuyer Program was established in 1994 to provide financial incentives for Yale employees to purchase homes in New Haven. At the time, the city had a major blight problem, to which absentee landlords were contributing. Greater homeownership was seen as the solution. Over the past 21 years, over 1,076 Yale employees have used the program to buy homes in New Haven, including 77 in Dixwell. In the mid-2000s, Yale’s visibility in the neighborhood increased. The University purchased a commercial laundry facility at the corner of Canal and Lock Streets, and had conversations with neighbors about what they wanted to see there. The Rose Center opened in 2006 to house both the Yale Police Department and the Dixwell-Yale Community Learning Center. Later that year, Yale paid the city $10 million to obtain land, adjacent to space it already owned, for a “yet-to-be-divulged expansion project,” according to a Sept. 22, 2006 New Haven Independent article. The University also gave the city $500,000 to expand the then-vacant Scantlebury Park. The deal created a full parcel of University-owned land just north of the Grove Street Cemetery. “Once the site has been assembled, the University will actively study the best academic use for the site,” declared a City of New Haven press release on Aug. 1, 2006. “The University expects to begin its planning in earnest in the fall.”

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ter one, marked by a heightened visibility of the divide that still remains between New Haven and its wealthiest institution. Hiring New Haven residents is also the among the most important things Yale can do to ensure it does not contribute to gentrification as it expands, said Cynthia Horan, a lecturer in the Political Science Department who teaches courses on the politics of cities. “The best thing the University can do for New Haven, and it would be true for the hospital as well, is to be a good employer,” Horan said. “Just to pay people decent salaries and have benefits and all that.” Yale maintains that this is exactly what it does. Of its 13,000 employees, 4,000 are currently New Haven residents, Alexander told The New Haven Independent in June. And one of the reasons Yale jobs are so sought-after is that their benefits and pay are highly competitive. Demone Lucky, 33, watched his four-year-old daughter play in the fountain at Scantlebury Park on a recent Sunday afternoon. Lucky grew up in the area, attended James Hillhouse High School and still lives near the park. The neighborhood now is nicer than when he was a kid, he said. He works in West Haven for City Line Distributors, a food distribution company, but he would like to work at Yale, maybe in one of the new colleges. He said he already applied for jobs through New Haven Works and has not gotten any calls from Yale. “Maybe it’s my fault, too,” he said. “But all I know is what I see, and I see them always building, not asking me to help.” As Yale builds, and as New Haven develops — Nemerson said the last two years have been the strongest the city’s economy has seen in a decade or more — some displacement of residents may be unavoidable. Indeed, though Morrison is optimistic about development in Ward 22, she believes that gentrification is under way. She said she has met with residents who are currently renting and say they want to get out of the neighborhood before property values increase and their rent goes up. Development, Morrison said, must be managed carefully. “I am not going to allow economic development to push my people out,” Morrison said, noting Dixwell’s history as a destination neighborhood for African Americans leaving the U.S. South early in the 20th century. “This ward is where black people came.” Morand, surveying the area north of Yale’s campus, said he believes the new colleges will complement Dixwell’s ongoing development. He took out a few photographs, one showing the site of Monterey Place in the early 1900s, crowded with the homes that preceded Elm Haven. Another showed the Elm Haven project shortly after it was constructed, a set of long buildings in neat rows. Today, less than 100 years after the first photograph was taken, the scene has been transformed for a third time. The message: the only constant in a city is change — people, structures and fortunes. Contact ISABELLE TAFT at isabelle.taft@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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NEWS

“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” WINSTON CHURCHILL FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

Million-dollar grant to fund YSPH climate program BY AMAKA UCHEGBU STAFF REPORTER The School of Public Health will bring two doctoral students, additional seminars and a speaker series to campus as part of “Climate Change and Health @ Yale,” a new program whose aim is to train future public health leaders. The program, spearheaded by Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health Robert Dubrow, will use a $1.3 million grant secured from the Overlook International Foundation to fund three summer internships for MPH students, two doctoral training positions and pilot research grants for faculty. The program will also bring new undergraduate and graduate school seminars and a leadership training workshop, as well as invite a climate change leader-in-residence to give talks around campus. Faculty and student climate change activists said they hope the new program will draw attention to how climate change affects the lives of everyday citizens. “Everyone is aware of how the climate is changing, but it is also having dramatic effects on health around the world in direct and indirect ways,” said Dean of the School of Public Health Paul Cleary. Cleary said the new program fits into a growing awareness that public health and climate change are interrelated. The World Health Organization, for instance, has created a list of 14 climate-sensitive communicable diseases that will result in an estimated 250,000 deaths annually between 2030 and 2050. Malaria, childhood undernutrition and diarrhea are among the illnesses that will increase in prevalence as global temperatures rise, Cleary said. Dubrow said that even in the United States, environmental disasters like wildfires that are caused by climate change can become public health issues. Losing all of one’s belongings in a wildfire, for instance, can lead to trauma that impacts mental health, he said. Cleary said the program will help address these issues by establishing an educational program on climate change at the school that will train future public health leaders to think of innovative ways to stop climate change and its health consequences. Students from across Yale will be able to access the program’s resources. Dubrow said the School of Public Health will begin selecting the students to fill the three-year

doctoral training positions during this year’s admissions cycle. They will matriculate next September. Cleary said that already, all MPH students at the School of Public Health must take a course in environmental health studies as part of their core curriculum. He said the new climate change and health program will bring a new case-study class focusing on climate change and health into the core curriculum. Three internships in climate-change health will also be funded, with $4,000 allocated to each student. Faculty will have the opportunity to receive a $35,000 grant to fund research related to the intersection of climate change and health. Though the program’s undergraduate seminar will only be open to Yale College students, the graduate seminar will admit students across Yale’s graduate and professional schools. All students at Yale’s schools will be eligible to apply for the program’s weekend-long leadership program, organized in conjunction with the Global Health Leadership Institute at Yale and the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. The climate change leader-in-residence — who this year will be climate activist and researcher James Hansen — will give a keynote address at the workshop and will host Master’s Teas during his visit to campus. According to Cleary, the program is unique to Yale. “A lot of other universities have components in health and climate change,” he said. “But we’re not aware of any broad program with a complete focus on climate change and health.” Students involved in environmental activism expressed enthusiasm about the program. Sarah Brandt ’17 said the program will bring a closer emphasis on how the climate affects people. “People generally feel apathetic about climate because it’s so abstract and distant, so they can’t feel any pressing motivation to care about climate change,” she said. “But when they see how many kids in the very town of New Haven are affected by higher rates of asthma due to pollution, climate change seems more alarming.” Cleary signed President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan to Protect Public Health, committing to training the next generation of climate leaders, in April. Contact AMAKA UCHEGBU at amaka.uchegbu@yale.edu .

Elis look to rebound from Iona BY MADDIE WUELFING CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Despite winning its first game of the season on Sept. 19 against Quinnipiac, the men’s soccer team is still struggling to find its form just as it gears up for Ivy League play. The Bulldogs (1–5–0, 0–0–0 Ivy) suffered a tough 2–1 loss to Iona (4–3–1, 0–0–0 Metro Atlantic) on the road Wednesday. Backto-back goals in the second half proved to be the team’s undoing. And while the Bulldogs managed to respond with a goal late in the game, it was too little, too late. After the loss, though, the Elis are looking for redemption. Tomorrow, they will face off against Rhode Island (4–4– 0, 0–0–0 Atlantic 10) at home in Reese Stadium. To win, several players interviewed said, the Bulldogs will need to play the full game without any lapses in focus or effort. “We have played tough opponents and been able to execute our style of soccer,” goalkeeper Ryan Simpson ’17 said. “Now all we need to do is have a full 90-minute performance from start to finish.” On Wednesday, the Eli defense managed to hold strong for 45 minutes, keeping the game scoreless in the first half. But that effort was not without difficulty — the Gaels outshot Yale 6–0 in the first half of the match. But after the intermission, the wheels came off. Aristotle Sederlis scored two goals in quick succession in the 59th and 61st minutes. “It was a long throw-in that was flicked on by Cameron Riach [’19], and Avery [Schwartz ’16] had a scissor kick to put it away,” forward Kyle Kenagy ’19 said. “He came in the game with a ton of energy and when he scored, it shifted the entire momentum of the game.” Yale was eventually able to respond with a 76th-minute goal by forward Schwartz to put the Bulldogs back into a winning

ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Bulldogs managed to escape the first half against Iona still deadlocked at zero despite being outshot 6–0 by the Gaels. position. Although Schwartz has started in every game this season for the Bulldogs, the goal on Wednesday was his first of the year — and of his career. Defenders Ollie Iselin ’18 and Cameron Riach ’19 both had shots in the last 10 minutes of the match, but their attempts could not get the win for the Elis. When asked what could have made the difference for Yale, players interviewed said they ought to have done a better job answering the Iona goals. “It’s frustrating because its has been something that the coaching staff has emphasized and something that we need to improve on before our next game,” midfielder Pablo Espinola ’16 said. Still, the Elis can take solace in a strong effort from their goalkeeper, Kees Schipper ’19. Schipper made his second career start and had six saves to hold Iona to only two goals. In its last non-conference game, Yale will be at home this Saturday, taking on Rhode Island at Reese

Stadium. According to Espinola, the Bulldogs are preparing for the match just like any other, seeing this as a chance to redeem themselves. Rhode Island is coming off a loss from Wednesday’s game against St. Francis Brooklyn. As the Bulldogs enter the weekend, players said they feel as though their first six games have prepared them for the upcoming Ivy games. “I think that the non-conference games have allowed us to experiment with different lineups, while also helping to gain confidence and poise,” said midfielder Theo Miller ’18. “The team is absolutely headed in the right direction, and we can’t wait until the Ivy League games begin.” Yale will host Rhode Island this Saturday at Reese Stadium at 7 p.m. Contact MADDIE WUELFING at madeleine.wuelfing@yale.edu .


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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

“I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life.’” MAYA ANGELOU AMERICAN WRITER

Classics professors explore ancient art BY STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTER On Thursday at the Yale University Art Gallery, Diana Kleiner, a professor of Classics, referenced the iconic line from the critically acclaimed movie “Dirty Dancing.” “Nobody puts baby in a corner,” she said while motioning to a funerary relief in the far corner of the exhibition room. Kleiner, along with four other classics faculty members, led a tour at the YUAG, titled “Classics at the Gallery.” Focusing on several pieces of ancient art, including ancient Roman busts, funerary inscriptions and vases, the talks discussed artifacts from several thousand years ago, but the faculty members found a way to connect them to modern theories in the realm of Classics. “Studying the ancient world is often a window into ourselves,” Kleiner said. “There is a connection between antiquity and today.” “Funerary Relief of Abuna, Daughter of Nabuna”, the piece Kleiner chose to present on, originates from the Temple Bel in Syria. The Temple is famous in the archaeological commu-

nity, but was destroyed by the Middle East-based extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria no less than a month ago, she added. Kleiner noted that the group has razed the site in order to steal certain sculptures and inscriptions to sell on the black market. According to Classics professor Andrew Johnston, cultural artifacts should not be separated from the context in which they existed, explaining that modern archaeologists are averse to relocating artifacts from their place of origin. “When they are removed from their original archaeological context, we lose so much information,” Johnston said. The speakers went on to debate differing theories pertaining to the origin of several of the artifacts. One funerary inscription features an elite man displaying his prominence in forms of clothing and books. While Classics professor Kirk Freudenberg saw this as a retrospective presentation of the life of an elite, Kleiner suggested that this could be the prospective presentation of a grieving family’s son who they tried to envision as a successful life were he to have lived.

According to Classics Director of Undergraduate Studies Pauline LeVen, some lessons illustrated in ancient cultural artifacts are still applicable today. For her presentation, she focused on an ancient vase depicting the ideals of moderation. According to LeVen, the Romans believed there was a “perfect amount of drink” that would reveal a Roman’s true self, but if a person drank too much they would become another more shameful self, similar to a gorgon. Thus, one side of the vase featured a mask while the other was an image of medusa. Introducing the event, LeVen said the event is created to introduce the Classics professors to the broader public and foster more intimacy in the already tight-knit community. Classics major Kate Miller ’16 said that, overall, the event was a “jolly” occasion and she is happy to be part of the intimate community of Classics at Yale. There are eight Classics majors in the class of 2016. The event culminated with pizza in Phelps Hall. Contact STEPHANIE ROGERS at stephanie.rogers@yale.edu .

KAIFENG WU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Classics professors aim to connect antiquity and modernity at the Yale University Art Gallary’s “Classics at the Gallery.”

Marlins president talks career, baseball BY KEVIN BENDESKY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER David Samson, the president of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins and the man who negotiated and authorized a $325 million contract, the largest in the history of sports, spoke to an audience of roughly 35 students at a Pierson Tea on Thursday. The discussion ranged from Samson’s background and career history to his brief stint on CBS’s “Survivor” and a wide array of interesting and frequently humorous topics in between. Despite his background in baseball, Samson touched on an array of topics in his discussion.

“I was expecting to hear what’s the day-to-day [business] for the president of the team,” Evan Green ’17 said. “What are some of the more exciting decisions that they make and what are the processes for that?” Samson began the discussion by telling the story of the company he founded out of college, News Travels Fast, which also served as his first job after graduating. The company bought issues of The New York Times and sold them to European customers. “I traveled through Europe as a child … and could not get a [New York] Knicks score except for one day late … which, for me, is the same as being a dollar short,”

Samson said. Beginning with stuffing his luggage with Saturday night newspapers, hopping on a plane to Paris and “distributing them throughout [the continent],” he developed his business until the Internet’s popularity exploded. Then, he knew it was time “to fold ’em,” and move on. He informed his audience of the necessity to be persistent in the journey to success, with an anecdote of how he tracked down the executive editor of The New York Times, and “posed as a schlepper” to hand-deliver a letter seeking a partnership between the two companies. He informed the audience that in business sometimes

one has to live by his credence: “Forgiveness is easier to ask for than permission.” Samson moved on to work as a consultant in Asia, before he “met a guy from Morgan Stanley,” and went to work on Wall Street. Following his stint in New York, he became an executive vice president for the Montreal Expos before signing on in 2002 to become the president of the Marlins — the job he still holds today. The transfer from Wall Street to baseball, Samson noted, might seem somewhat odd to the casual observer. He explained to the audience that “one of the biggest misconceptions about baseball is how glamorous it is,” and in real-

ity “it’s a business.” He was successful in the transition because he simply “took the lessons [he] learned and brought them into baseball.” Samson then shifted the topic of the discussion to what he looks for when he is hiring. He told the audience, who could not help but laugh, of some of the common mistakes he finds on resumes. He eliminates 200 of the 300 resumes he receives a week “with just grammatical mistakes,” an additional 6 percent who “put a p in [his] name” and 15 a week who tell him how excited they are to work for a team other than the Marlins. He then talked about his skeptical view of baseball’s shift

toward an increase in the use of sabermetrics, or analytics. “We are looking for people who have the ability to understand analytics, but also have eyes, and also have the ability to actually scout, and to actually make decisions on the baseball side that are not based on just numbers,” Samson said. Adam Jenkinson ’18, who attended the talk, said he found Samson’s talk interesting because Samson helped him realize that baseball is a business. “A very small part of it is actually playing,” Jenkinson said. Contact KEVIN BENDESKY at kevin.bendesky@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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AROUND THE IVIES

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” OSCAR WILDE IRISH PLAYWRIGHT

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

Lessig, professor of politics, sets his sights on the presidency BY MEG BERNHARD Long ago, Larry Lessig relished the private world of an academic. That was another life, though, before a cartoon version of his face—grey hair, tiny round glasses—cropped up all over the internet, before he discussed his books and joked around on TV shows like “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” That was before he decided to run for president of the United States. When I meet with Lessig at a restaurant in Harvard Square, it’s a gloomy September afternoon, the day after he’s officially announced his bid for the presidency in the small mill town of Claremont, New Hampshire. The interview was difficult to schedule. Lessig’s been traveling a lot recently and only has 30 minutes to spare. Leaning over the table

on one elbow, he seems tired and stressed. He got back to Boston late the night before after meeting with campaign HARVARD organizers and missed dinner with his family. Right now, he’s anxious about a lastminute flight to Washington, D.C., which will leave in a few hours. After this interview, he says, he’ll be rushing off to another. “I need some coffee,” Lessig says wearily, reaching under his thinframed glasses to rub his deep-set eyes. The day before, on Sept. 9, Lessig stood under a sweltering sun about 115 miles northwest of Boston, speaking to the few dozen supporters who had somehow found their

way there at noon on a Wednesday. They were all gathered in the grassy backyard of a senior center, partly hemmed in by a few gnarled apple trees, fanning themselves with Lessig 2016 posters. To an outsider, the event probably looked less like a presidential launch than a peaceful outdoor sermon. And Lessig was the preacher. He had just raised $1 million in crowdfunded donations—the amount he had set to kickstart his presidential campaign—in less than a month. His speech was exacting, crisp, well-performed; it bore the cadence of practiced rehearsal. America’s democracy had been bought, Lessig charged. He was going to pour every ounce of his energy into taking it off the market. The plan, which he elaborated that day, is simple, if unconventional. Lessig is campaigning to pass a pack-

age of reforms aimed at changing the way American elections are conducted and financed. If he wins, and is able to pass those reforms, he will immediately step down and let his vice president assume power. But Larry Lessig wouldn’t call himself a politician. No one else will call him a politician. Many of his own friends don’t think he seriously wants to become president. To most, he’s a law professor at Harvard who’s become somewhat of a celebrity in the past two decades. That part makes sense—he practically invented the field of cyber law, colleagues say, later turning his attention to the study of institutional corruption, a decision that placed him on the national stage as an outspoken critic of the influence of money in politics. But president of the United States?

MADELINE LEAR/THE HARVARD CRIMSON

Larry Lessig poses for a photo on a bench outside the Charles Hotel on Sept. 10.

r e c y c l e yourydndaily yale institute of sacred music presents

patricia hampl The Art of the Wasted Day: A Reading

Yale Literature and Spirituality Series reading followed by book-signing Thursday, October 1 · 5:30 pm Marquand Chapel (409 Prospect St.)

Free; no tickets required. Presented in collaboration with the Yale Divinity Student Book Supply. ism.yale.edu


PAGE 12

NEWS

YALE DAILY NEWS 路 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 路 yaledailynews.com


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 13

“I love the smell of juice boxes in the morning.” ROBERT DUVALL AMERICAN ACTOR AND DIRECTOR

New juice bar to open on Chapel St. BY NATALINA LOPEZ CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A new shop opening on Chapel Street is set to get the Elm City’s juices flowing. After a summer of waiting, Sasha Zabar and his business partners Sammy Chamino and Max Young — who happen to be Zabar’s two best friends — are set to open The Juice Box, which will sell cold-pressed juices along with prepared foods and inhouse baked gluten free goods. The shop, which will open in early November, will occupy the empty retail storefront at 1092 Chapel St., two doors down from Atticus Bookstore and Café. Last year, Zabar, Chamino and Young partnered to open The White Buffalo, an e-cigarette lounge on Chapel Street downtown. Eli Zabar, Sasha’s father and owner of Manhattan’s successful E.A.T. café, has led Sasha to eat and champion healthy cuisine since a young age. “Growing things really grows in my blood,” said Zabar, laughing in reference to an article published in The New York Times about him planting watermelon on his family’s rooftop at the age of six. Zabar said his childhood summers were spent growing vegetables and making olive oils with his family in the south of France. During the three years after he dropped out of Cornell University, Zabar worked for French chefs, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten. During his high school years, he also started a warehouse party business. Zabar stressed that he wanted to bring a shop to New Haven that served vegan snacks with high quality ingredients and produce from local farmers. The Juice Box will have both vegan and vegetarian options including acai bowls and chia pudding. Zabar said he “can’t stand” the places that serve a few pieces of kale or fake ingredients. “We are a [juice bar], but we want the emphasis to be on good food,” said Chamino. “There is a wellness revolution happening.” Chamino emphasized that juicing helps bring nutrients to all parts of the body, and cold-pressed is the best juicing method. The bar’s juices will be made in a juice press that does not use centrifugal force, meaning it will neither heat up nor extract any of the nutrients from the juices.

They will contain neither sugar nor added ingredients. Along with fresh juices made to order, the friends plan to serve coldpressed coffee and a variety of nutmilks. Industry experts interviewed underscored that the juicing method Zabar’s store will use has become a major trend in America’s youth. Ray Latif, an editor at Bevnet, a magazine that covers beverage industry news and analyzes major beverage trends, said that cold-pressing has recently become more appealing to Americans because this method better retains nutrients and flavors compared with traditional blending. Students interviewed said they will welcome the addition to New Haven’s restaurant landscape. “I like Claire’s, but it’s relatively expensive and pretty much dominates the vegan scene in New Haven,” said Jess Hallam ’16, who has maintained a vegetarian lifestyle throughout college. “It’d be nice to have more explicitly vegan or vegetarian places for variety.” Zabar and Chamino both expressed their love for New Haven and its food, especially the cheap-eats like the Wenzel. But they underlined that they saw holes in the Elm City’s restaurant expanse. The Juice Box is an entirely different establishment from Claire’s, Zabar said. He highlighted that Claire’s, while oldschool in its preparation, is classic and sets a higher bar in the city’s restaurant scene. But Zabar also noted that The Juice Box is focused on both the younger, student demographic and residents across New Haven. Zabar also said he does not believe that B-Natural Café — the organic coffee and drink restaurant at 1044 Chapel St. — serves as direct competition for the young owners since The Juice Box will specialize in coldpressed juices. “We’ve been here for eight to 10 years, and I don’t see our regulars going away from us,” said Jessica, an associate at B-Natural, said. “It’s still going to be a little tough competition, though.” Zabar said he is confident that the new juice bar can fill the fresh and delicious food gap in the Elm City. Contact NATALINA LOPEZ at natalina.lopez@yale.edu .

WA LIU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The Juice Box, a juice bar selling cold-pressed juices and baked goods, will open at 1092 Chapel St. in early November.

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PAGE 14

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I wanted to retire after I played for the Mets. My family said wait one year, that there was no need to rush it. I gave it a year and now it’s time to say goodbye.” GARY SHEFFIELD FORMER MLB OUTFIELDER

How to beat the Big Red KEYS FROM PAGE 16 240 total offensive yards — a figure that Yale’s offense doubled in nine of 10 contests last year. By stacking the box to stop Hagy’s rushing threat, the Bulldogs can force Cornell to attack through the air, a strategy in which the Big Red is much less proven. Quarterback Robert Somborn enters his fifth collegiate start having completed just nine passes on 18 attempts last weekend. Though stopping the pass will also be important for the Eli defense, testing out Somborn’s abilities early on in the

contest may be the least-risky strategy.

DEFEND THE DEEP BALL

That being said, when the Big Red found success last weekend, it did so via the downfield passing game. For a Yale secondary that was susceptible to big plays a year ago, what Somborn lacks in experience he more than makes up for in arm strength. Despite completing only nine passes, the third-year signal caller still managed 152 yards, including a 41-yard strike down the right sideline on the Big Red’s first touchdown drive of

the game. Even in his limited playing time in 2014, Somborn’s willingness to try and beat defenses over the top was still on display. Of the four quarterbacks to see significant action last season, Somborn’s average yards-per-passing attempt was 7.8 yards, while the three others ranged between 3.6 and 5.2 yards per attempt. The potential emergence of James Hubbard, who had three receptions for 60 yards in his first career start at wideout, paired with deep threat Collin Shaw, who was tied for third in the Ivy League in yards per catch

in 2014, will keep head coach Tony Reno’s secondary on its toes. In addition to getting yards in bunches, the deep passing attack will open up running lanes for Hagy and keep the Yale defense honest. But preventing big plays and forcing Cornell to throw underneath will give Yale a significant edge on defense.

PLAY A FULL 60

Yale’s 29–28 win over Colgate last Saturday was packed with excitement, particularly in the fourth quarter, and the Bulldogs were fortunate to come

Hagy, Big Red come to the Bowl FOOTBALL FROM PAGE 16 and threw for 312 yards, while the defense held Cornell to negative yards in the first quarter and just 189 total yards. Matching these gaudy statistics will be difficult considering that Cornell is returning nine defensive starters and a second-team All-Ivy running back in Luke Hagy. Furthermore, while Cornell played three different quarterbacks against Yale last year, they appear to have found a consistent starter in sophomore Robert Somborn. “They’ve got some fast wideouts, some guys who can get downfield, so I think if we stay on top of them we should be okay,” defensive back Spencer Rymiszewski ’17 said. “Their quarterback was young last year, but give him another year of experience and he should be pretty tough … Hagy, the running back, is a great player too. He has the ability to make some explosive runs out of the backfield and also can catch the ball pretty well.”

Hagy was Cornell’s only player to score an offensive touchdown against the Elis last season. He ran for 105 yards against the Bison, marking his fourth-consecutive 100-yard game — a streak that is currently second-best in school history. Additionally, the Big Red defense held Bucknell to 286 total yards despite losing the time of possession battle by 14 minutes. Cornell’s ability to continually run the ball might concern the Bulldogs, who struggled to maintain their rhythm throughout the matchup against Colgate. The Elis initially came out strong against the Raiders, driving 71 yards to score on the opening series before stagnating in the second and third quarters. Not until halfway through the fourth quarter did the offense look as sharp as it had on its first possession. “We had a great first series, but after that, struggled a little bit,” wide receiver Robert Clemons III ’17 said. “It had nothing to do with game plan. Maybe it was

GREG CAMERON/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

This year will mark the 15th consecutive season in which the Bulldogs have opened Ivy League play against Cornell.

just first-game jitters.” These jitters manifested themselves in Yale’s eight penalties, seven of which came in the first half. Half of them were false starts or illegal formations, calls that often indicate lack of discipline. Adding that things began to gel in the fourth quarter, Clemons said last week’s game ended well only because players stepped up and showed the work they had put in during the offseason. Reno echoed Clemons, adding that once the offense found its rhythm, it was productive. “I said to these guys last week, you don’t know how long it takes to get into rhythm,” Reno said. “You saw us get in rhythm [against Colgate on our] opening drive, really, then get out of rhythm and finally got back in offensively. I thought the offense did a nice job once they got in rhythm.” The offense seemed to find that rhythm last week once Roberts started spreading the ball around. Roberts connected with seven different receivers, ultimately completing 29 of 41 attempts for 293 yards. Although one receiver, transfer Bo Hines ’18, ended up leaving the game with a shoulder injury, the young corps of Yale receivers more than made up for his absence. The corps was bolstered by the return of a pair of tight ends who both sat out games last season after sustaining high ankle sprains against Cornell. Sebastian Little ’17 and Stephen Buric ’16 combined to tally four catches for 28 yards against Colgate. But even if the Bulldogs can move the ball effectively, they will most likely be facing an uphill battle when it comes to field position. Cornell punter Chris Fraser led the Ivy League with a 41.7-yard punt average last season and put 21 balls inside the 20-yard line. The junior is currently averaging 45.0 yards per punt. If the Yale and Cornell defenses are as stingy as they were last week, Fraser and his Yale counterpart, Bryan Holmes ’17, will end up volleying across the field. As this is Yale’s first home game of the season, it is the homecoming game. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. at the Yale Bowl. Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .

Bulldogs sail to victory SAILING FROM PAGE 16 how conditions at Kings Point helped him transition to the new level of competition. “Yale has unique conditions that most teams don’t get. A lot of college sailing venues are on lakes or rivers, and they have really unstable wind conditions. But Kings Point is pretty similar to ours in the sense that it’s steady,” Baird said. “So we had basically been practicing in the conditions we had at K.P. for almost every day of practice we’ve had so far.” Baird, along with Claire Huebner ’18 and Amelia Dobronyi ’17, finished fourth in the A division. Nick Hernandez ’19 and Emily Johnson ’16 placed second in the B division. “I had been practicing with Nick for a little bit in the weeks leading up to [last weekend], and it was a lot of fun sailing with him,” said Johnson of the freshmansenior duo. “He’s a really great sailor. He’s one of the guys in the freshman class we’re really excited about.” As the Nevins was a three-division event, Christopher Champa ’18 was forced to race solo in the final group in an unfamiliar Laser dinghy. The result was a lagging score in the C-division column, which accounted for over 50 percent of the team’s total points. The Bulldogs also turned in an eighthplace overall finish at the Central Series, hosted by Boston College. The A-division boat of KB Knapp ’18, Caroline Colwell ’18 and Claire Rossi de Leon ’19 finished fourth in the Boston Harbor, while Rossi de Leon, Charles Skoda ’17, and Ayla Besemer ’19 came 13th in the B.

Meanwhile, the women’s team stayed in state and competed for the Stu Nelson Trophy, hosted by Connecticut College. After winning the event a year ago, the team, represented by Casey Klingler ’18 and Isabelle Rossi de Leon ’17 in the A division and by Marly Isler ’16 and Kira Woods ’19 in the B division, placed fourth overall. Klingler and Rossi de Leon particularly impressed, finishing only nine points out of the A division first place, good for third in the pair’s A-division debut. They capped off the competition in New London by winning the 12th and final race of the event. “I think we sailed really well. I think we did a really good job of being consistent, especially across the two days, because the conditions were completely different,” Rossi de Leon said. “I honestly didn’t know how [Klingler and I] would do, especially in our first A women’s regatta. I have complete faith that we can be successful and maybe even dominate the division this season and next season, but the first one’s always a little nerve-wracking. So I guess it was a pleasant surprise that it didn’t feel difficult.” Three Bulldogs who raced in the co-ed events will help make up the women’s team this weekend. Knapp and Colwell return to Massachusetts, where they will race in the A division of the Regis Bowl, hosted on the Charles by Boston University. Huebner will pair with Sanam Rastegar ’16 in the B, and the four will try to give Yale its thirdstraight win at the event. Members of the co-ed team will split between three locations. Some will travel to the Ocean State, where they will com-

YALE DAILY NEWS

For the second consecutive year, the co-ed sailing team won the Hatch Brown Trophy at MIT. pete at the Salt Pond Invitational, hosted by the University of Rhode Island. The rest will head up to Massachusetts, participating in either Tufts’ Hood Trophy or in the New England Men’s Singlehanded Championship, hosted by Yale at the New Bedford Yacht Club in South Dartmouth. Contact DAVID WELLER at david.weller@yale.edu .

away with a victory and a season-opening win. But the reason Yale needed a 14-point comeback in the first place was that its offense was anemic for most of the first half, an issue that, if repeated, could certainly cost the Elis against stronger opponents down the road. Cornell was ranked last in the Ivy League media preseason poll this summer, making tomorrow’s contest one that Yale should expect to win. But beyond that, the Bulldogs should make sure to start off on a good note and continue that momentum for an entire 60 minutes of play.

Last weekend, the Elis certainly did start hot, with a quick 14-play, 71-yard opening drive that ended with a touchdown by running back Candler Rich ’17. That was followed, however, by eight consecutive Yale drives without a score. If the offense can stay strong for a full game and avoid that same type of slowdown, it will set itself up to be able to do the same in future contests. Contact JAMES BADAS at james.badas@yale.edu and GREG CAMERON at greg.cameron@yale.edu .

Elis look to repeat yet again

ERIN WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Bulldogs begin their 14-game marathon against Ivy opponents tonight. VOLLEYBALL FROM PAGE 16 especially vital. The Bears come into tonight’s game riding a three-game winning streak, having won last weekend’s CCSU Invitational by defeating Holy Cross, Central Connecticut State and Hartford, dropping only one set across the three games. Last fall, Yale beat Brown 3–0 in both of their clashes. In their game in Providence, Yale dominated the first set before winning tight second and third sets. A month later, in New Haven, the Bulldogs won all three sets handily, cruising in front of an enthusiastic home crowd. Despite those results, nothing is guaranteed for Yale. Both teams look very different from last year: 2014 Bulldog captain Mollie Rogers ’15, who dominated against Brown, has now graduated, and both the Elis and Bears have brought in a number of talented freshmen. Brown is led in kills by freshman outside hitter Sabrina Stillwell, who has already garnered two Ivy Rookie of the Week awards and an Ivy League Honor Roll selection for her accomplishments on the court. Stillwell ranks fourth in the Ivy League with 3.32 kills per set and eighth in the conference in hitting percentage. Stillwell is joined on both leaderboards by junior middle blocker Payton Smith, who finished third in the Ivy League in hitting percentage last season and looks to compete for an All-Ivy spot this year. In order to defeat the Bears, Yale must try to neutralize these two primary threats. “They have a lot of offensive threats and some good freshmen,” Ebner said.

Smith was especially effective a year ago against the Elis, with 15 total kills in those two games, the most by any Bear. Despite the talent facing them on the other side of the net, the Bulldogs are well-equipped to shut down Brown’s offense and disrupt their rhythm. Once Yale can establish a solid defensive effort, more opportunities to take offensive chances open up. “I think this past weekend showed the strength of our defense,” captain and outside hitter Karlee Fuller ’16 said. “This is such a key part of the game, and to have it well-developed early on in the season is great because it allows us run an aggressive offense.” Whether or not these Bears present more of a challenge than last season’s edition did, the Yale veterans understand that they must bring their all for every single Ivy matchup. In a league where the best two or three teams tend to dominate, a single misstep against a lesser opponent could cost the Bulldogs in their quest for an NCAA berth. “Conference games have more worth because they count toward our Ivy record and our chances of obtaining another title,” Fuller said. “This adds a bit of pressure to each match that preseason doesn’t necessarily have, but … we often see it as a driving force.” Tonight, Yale takes its first steps toward that goal. The Bulldogs play two more games at home next week before the key Dartmouth-Harvard road trip that will have major title implications. Yale hosts Brown at 7 p.m. tonight in the John J. Lee Amphitheater. Contact JONATHAN MARX at jonathan.marx@yale.edu .


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 15

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

TOMORROW

Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Northeast wind around 11 mph..

SUNDAY

High of 71, low of 52.

High of 71, low of 57.

XKCD BY RANDALL MUNROE

ON CAMPUS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 11:00 AM Yale Innovation Series: Funding and Resources for Commercialization. The Yale Innovation Seminar Series kicks off with an overview of available resources so you can start applying to programs and building connections for taking your technology on the path to commercialization. Learn about available resources for developing and launching your venture from experts at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, the Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology and Connecticut Innovations. Brady Aud. (310 Cedar St.). 1:30 PM Lecture, Food for Thought: Peter Claesz and Dutch Still Life. Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles John Walsh ’61, a specialist in Dutch paintings, explores the motives for still-life painting and the likely responses of 17th-century audiences. Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.).

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 10:00 AM Science Saturday Lecture & Science Demonstrations Series: “Proton Coupled Electron Transfer: The Key to Solar Energy.” Science Saturdays is a special lecture series designed for families that brings the excitement of research and the passion of scientists to school-age children. Each event involves a lecture by a Yale professor and engaging science demonstrations run by Yale College students. The lectures are free and open to the public and the topics explored are for kids in 7th grade and above. Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (225 Prospect St.), Rm. 110. 7:30 PM Yale Family Weekend Gala Concert. Featuring the Yale Glee Club (Jeffrey Douma, Music Director), Yale Concert Band (Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director) and Yale Symphony Orchestra (Toshiyuki Shimada, Conductor). Woolsey Hall (500 College St.).

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Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Isaac Stanley-Becker at (203) 432-2418. Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.

To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Better protected 6 “Poppycock!” 10 Badlands Natl. Park site 14 Coarse 15 Suspicious of 16 Pup follower? 17 Up for grabs, in a way 18 Lit. intro 19 “Willard” antagonists 20 The joke at the audiologists’ convention __ 23 Solo, say 24 Indian author Santha Rama __ 25 Century-starting year 26 The joke at the chemists’ convention __ 32 Not treat lightly 34 Normandy river 35 “Defending Our Nation. Securing The Future” org. 36 __ swings 37 “POV” airer 38 Extreme degrees 39 “The Trumpet of the Swan” monogram 40 Boxed dozen 42 Vail topper 44 The joke at the firefighters’ convention __ 47 Part of a friskiness metaphor 48 Jersey’s chew 49 “The Simpsons” leisure suit wearer 52 The joke at the cashiers’ convention __ 56 Not even close 57 Lightest meson 58 Ex-TV host Stewart 59 Kick back 60 Required bet 61 “R.U.R.” writer Capek 62 Language that gave us “bard” 63 Old Royale 8’s 64 Gambling aids: Abbr.

9/25/15

By Amy Johnson

DOWN 1 Shining target 2 Journey frontman Pineda 3 Mature 4 Henry James biographer 5 Backtalk 6 The Carpenters, e.g. 7 Regarding 8 Mississippi travelers 9 “Meet the Fockers” co-star 10 Channel relative 11 Word John doesn’t want to see? 12 They’re seen in columns 13 Lapidary’s meas. 21 Some flatbreads 22 Nero’s “Behold!” 27 Ref. shelf filler 28 Singer Rihanna’s first name 29 Where a love story may be written 30 Workers’ rights org. 31 Tweed lampooner 32 Drake, maybe

Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU BEING A YDN EDITOR

3

6 8 7

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33 Start of a dramatic question 37 Like new snow 38 End to peace? 40 Evita’s man 41 As expected 42 Complacent 43 Grizzly Alaskans? 45 Walk wearing Luvs 46 Dramatic units

9/25/15

50 Principle 51 Dividing range 52 When one __ closes ... 53 Hardly blessed events 54 Till opener 55 Crack up 56 NFL team with a home field bleachers section called the Dawg Pound

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SPORTS KEITH BOND ’16 FRANCIS GORDON BROWN WINNER Bond has played 27 games and scored two career goals, but perhaps the forward’s greatest accomplishment came off the pitch. Bond was awarded the Francis Gordon Prize, given to a member of the junior class who most closely lives up to Francis Gordon Brown’s 1901 standard.

PENN FOOTBALL THURSDAY NIGHT UPSET The Quakers may have lost by three touchdowns a week ago, but Penn came out last night with a purpose. It defeated No. 4 Villanova on the road 24–13 after a dominant first half where the Quakers out-gained the Wildcats 219–29.

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“[Cornell has] some fast wideouts … [but] I think if we stay on top of them we should be okay.” SPENCER RYMISZEWSKI ’17 FOOTBALL YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Bulldogs open Ivy season FOOTBALL

BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER On Saturday, two Ivy League squads, one week removed from fourth-quarter comebacks, will enter the Yale Bowl looking to start their conference seasons with a win. For the Cornell Big Red (0–1, 0–0 Ivy), that meant watching Bucknell score nine points in the final 1:53, including seven on a Hail Mary touchdown pass thrown into double coverage. On the other side, Yale’s (1–0, 0–0) 14-point comeback over Colgate gave the Elis their ninth-straight victory in a season opener. But come this weekend, the Bulldogs are not overlooking their foe, which went 1–6 in Ivy play a season ago and gave up 336 points in 10 games. This year’s team, though picked to finish last in the preseason poll, came 1:53 away from beating a team picked to finish second in the Patriot League. “They’re a lot more veteran than they’ve been,” head coach Tony Reno said of the Big Red. “You can argue, when you watch that film, that Cornell should’ve won that game … To do that to a team picked to finish second in the Patriot League … It tells you how much they’ve improved.” The Bulldogs have opened their Ivy League season with the Big Red for the past 15 years and are currently on a two-game winning streak. Last season’s matchup, a 51–13 victory for the Elis, saw Yale completely dominate both sides of the ball. Quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 completed 86.7 percent of his passes SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 14

Keys to the game BY JAMES BADAS AND GREG CAMERON STAFF REPORTERS Fresh off Yale football’s thrilling comeback victory at Colgate to open the 2015 campaign, the Bulldogs will make their home debut tomorrow afternoon against Cornell. Having won just 14 Ancient Eight contests over the past eight seasons, the Big Red was the preseason media poll selection to finish in the basement of the conference. Yet Cornell nearly escaped Week 1 with an upset win over Bucknell, before falling victim to a toss-andcatch with just 1:53 remaining that resulted in a 19–14 defeat. If the Bulldogs can stuff Cornell’s running game, avoid allowing big plays and mesh offensively for the entire game, they can emerge victorious in more comfortable fashion and move on with a 2–0 start to their season.

FOOTBALL HALT HAGY

RAIN TSONG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 threw for 293 yards in last week’s season opener against Colgate.

Bulldogs begin Ivy season with Brown

If there is one thing that can be learned about Cornell’s offense from its past 11 games, it is that the Big Red has quite an affinity for utilizing its star running back. Luke Hagy, now a senior leader for Cornell, was a central offensive weapon for his 1–9 team last season and continued that trend in last week’s nailbiting loss with 18 carries for 105 yards. Hagy’s 19 touches last Saturday comprised exactly half of the 38 rushes and completions for Cornell in the entire game. Though Bucknell scored a middling 19 points, the Bison took advantage of the Big Red’s one-dimensional offense, allowing just 14 points and SEE KEYS PAGE 14

Elis divide and conquer the seas BY DAVID WELLER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In its second competitive weekend of the year, the only Yale team looking to defend three national championships built on an encouraging start to its fall season.

SAILING

Yale game on their schedule, and those teams may be better prepared to take down the Bulldogs than ever before. “The entire Ivy League has gotten better,” middle blocker Jesse Ebner ’16 said. “And I can honestly say that each of the seven other teams is a strong competitor and a real threat.” Nonetheless, the Bulldogs feel confident and prepared for their 14-game marathon through the conference. Tonight’s game against Brown begins an important early stretch for the Bulldogs; with five of their first seven games at home, getting off to a winning start is

The Yale sailing team competed in four regattas throughout the Northeast, showing the potential that should, once again, make the Bulldogs a major player come the higherstakes spring. Six members of the co-ed team put an exclamation point on the weekend by capturing the Hatch Brown Trophy at MIT for the second consecutive year. Each Yale pair racing through the notoriously unpredictable winds on the Charles finished in the top five in its division. Ian Barrows ’17 and Natalya Doris ’17 placed fourth in the Hatch Brown A division, while Clara Robertson ’17 and Mitchell Kiss ’17 took first in the B division with just 57 points — an average of essentially a fourth-place finish in each of the event’s 14 races. The boat of Chandler Gregoire ’17 and Malcolm Lamphere ’18 topped the C division, ensuring Yale’s 14-point overall victory in Cambridge. At the same time, a pair of freshmen helped guide Yale to an 11thplace finish out of 20 teams at the Nevins Trophy in Kings Point, New York. Nic Baird ’19, who was sailing in his first college regatta, described

SEE VOLLEYBALL PAGE 14

SEE SAILING PAGE 14

ERIN WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

In both of Yale’s two matches last season against Brown, the Bulldogs won in three straight sets. BY JONATHAN MARX STAFF REPORTER For Yale volleyball, the past three weekends of preseason play have been a test of adversity and an opportunity to build chemistry. Starting tonight, though, the stakes become higher for the Bulldogs.

VOLLEYBALL Yale (5–4, 0–0 Ivy) hosts Brown (6–5, 0–0) tonight to begin its quest for a sixth consecutive Ivy championship. Just as in the past few seasons, every team in the Ancient Eight will circle the

STAT OF THE DAY 15

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Bulldogs sailed in four regattas throughout the Northeast last weekend and will partake in three this weekend.

THE NUMBER OF CONSECUTIVE YEARS THE YALE FOOTBALL TEAM HAS OPENED IVY LEAGUE PLAY AGAINST CORNELL. The last time the Elis lost to the Big Red was in 2012 with a score of 45–6, while Yale most recently defeated Cornell 51–13.


WEEKEND // FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

Yale University

IMAGINE SCHWARZMAN

//BY IRENE CONNELLY //PAGE 3

FAREWELL

B2

WELLSPRING

B5

NE’ER-DO-WELL B12

ADIEU

THE SONG OF THE EARTH

ACADEMIA’S BAD BOY

Auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

An exhibit teaches us to sing with all the voices of the mountain and paint with all the colors of the wind.

WKND sits down with former Weather Underground member and bellweather of political opinion Bill Ayers.


PAGE B2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND

WEEKEND VIEWS

ON FEMINISM AND ALIENATION // BY WEEKEND

// LAURIE WANG

LIU

In July, Jess Zimmerman published an article called “Where’s my Cut?: On Unpaid Emotional Labor.” She argues that women learn to stroke men’s egos, calm their tempers and endure their insults, all without pay. She’s joking, of course, when she suggests that these men write checks to their girlfriends, confidantes and sisters — she just means that women deserve acknowledgement. Women aren’t born with the deep-seated desire to smile and nod at men’s complaints; they don’t wake up every morning thinking, “If only I could find a man to interrupt me, ignore me and bulldoze me!” In sum, unpaid emotional labor is a service, not a right. We — David, Andy and Jane — mention this article for several reasons. 1) WKND is a feminist publication, with feminist ide-

als. 2) The work of an editor is not unlike the work of a female confidante. For the past year, we have produced an issue of WKND every Friday morning. In other words, we have gone to class (or lunch or work) on Fridays and seen our publication in unexpected places. Pulpy WKND in the gutter. Faded WKND in the Pierson courtyard. Food-stained WKND outside Atticus. Mostly, we’ve seen WKND in the hands of strangers — a sight that stirs up complicated feelings. First, we see these strangers and think: Thank God! Thank God the words and pictures actually left 202 York St., and moved into the boundless world beyond! Much of the work we do as Yale students is private work: papers we write for professors, jobs we hold for our parents, races we

run for ourselves. Or, in Marxist terms, we’re estranged from our destinies and alienated from our labor, mechanistic cogs in the Yale machine that engage with texts, ideas and people for no good reason. But WKND has been a path towards Marxist self-actualization for its editors. To see a stranger read your newspaper is to feel a little more autonomous, a little more in control. We’ve seen the fruits of our labor, and (weirdly, inexplicably) felt closer to our fellow students (even to those who aren’t feminists). Though powerlessness often reigns supreme at Yale — we’re tired, we’re taking bad classes, we’re not getting enough financial aid — WKND has given a little power back to three disorganized, hopeful kids. Of course, as we watch strang-

ers reading WKND every Friday, we could also think: That stranger does not know that I am the puppet master! I pitched, then edited those interesting articles. Unpaid emotional labor! Why work on something without pay, and without recognition? No one emails the editors telling us we’ve done a great job. (Full disclosure: We haven’t always done a great job.) But we do not have those thoughts. And here, let’s establish a distinction between the unpaid emotional labor provided by marginalized groups and the service provided by editors: it’s a question of vectors. (WKND always believes it’s a question of vectors). When a woman engages in conversation with a Bad Man — one on one, face to face — she often harbors illusions of reciprocity. Conversations, after all,

often involve respect and empathy. Yet the Bad Man quickly disabuses her of this belief: She ends up stroking his ego, soothing his anger, suffering his insults, et cetera. Her conversational vector shrinks to nothing, while his dominates the “conversation.” (Proof that feminism is relevant: In May, a self-identified male feminist told Jane, “I only interrupt you because I care about you and our relationship!” At the time, Jane was too sad to explain why that sentence was not, in fact, a feminist statement. A Yale diploma and Judith Butler textbook do not a feminist make!) When we see a stranger reading WKND, we see that person’s intellectual vector engaging with the author’s intellectual vector. All we — David, Andy, Jane — did was bring the two parties together, facilitate the discus-

sion. Each week, we have nudged our writers towards readers, then stepped back to watch the beginning of real reciprocity. So no: The editor’s work is like, but unlike, the female confidante’s work. The female confidante endures the failure of conversation, while the editor can sometimes spark discussion through unpaid emotional labor. The editor does not entertain illusions of mutuality, and therefore neither reader nor author has done the editor harm. To wit: Don’t pay your YDN editors, pay your female friends. This is our last issue as puppet masters, our last chance to bring writers and readers together. We love you, fellow cogs in the machine. We hope you pursue something (anything!) that makes you feel a little more autonomous, a little more in control.

Offer Very Little Information About Yourself // BY MICHELLE LIU Let’s play a word association game:

BRAUNSTEIN

Papyrus (featured widely on my 6th grade social studies worksheets). Platypus (an upscale pasta-andsalad chain restaurant I encountered this summer, in Singapore). Platitude (“a remark or statement, especially one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful,” Google told me). The opposite of a platitude, I think, is a Truism. Truisms go a little like this: “IF YOU HAVE MANY DESIRES YOUR LIFE WILL BE INTERESTING” or “WORRYING CAN HELP YOU PREPARE” or “PAIN CAN BE A VERY POSITIVE THING.” Invented by neoconceptual artist Jenny Holzer in the 70s, these aphorisms are bite-sized and always in all caps. One will fall into your lap whenever you need it. In detention? “YOU MUST DISAGREE WITH AUTHORITY FIGURES.” Trying to get on birth control? “THE DESIRE TO REPRODUCE IS A DEATH WISH.” Your roommate left your suite unlocked and now your speakers are gone? “PRIVATE PROP-

ERTY CREATED CRIME.” Holzer originally printed them on broadsheets — white font, black background — and then left them strewn around Manhattan. Now they just mostly float around Tumblr, buoyed by the reblogs of bored and sad teenagers. Jenny Holzer’s Wikipedia bio says she is 65 years old. I wonder if Holzer receives Social Security benefits. And how much in royalties did she make from her collaboration with the Dallas Cowboys? (On sale, on their website: “EXPIRING FOR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL BUT STUPID” on a shirt, “BOREDOM MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS” on a cap.) Sometimes I begin to shelve whole chapters of my life according to Truisms. They become shorthand for embarrassing moments I’d rather not recount, personal failures of all kinds. For example: “SOLITUDE IS ENRICHING” is good when I’m in the library on a Saturday night. “TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE OR BREAK US” worries me when I make a phone call. The missing chunk of glass

at the top of my iPhone, with its remnant jagged edges, might cut my ear. “WORDS TEND TO BE INADEQUATE” is for my apathy as deadline approaches, be it for an essay or a View (like this one, perhaps?). “MONEY CREATES TASTE.” Some girl left a Canada Goose coat in my suite last year. She never bothered to retrieve it. “IT IS EMBARRASSING TO BE CAUGHT AND KILLED FOR STUPID REASONS” is a good way to think about the time I ironically (or not) rushed a recent addition to the Yale Greek life scene and didn’t get a bid! I’m getting too old for Truisms. I used to confuse Jenny Holzer with Barbara Kruger, a very long time ago. I am embarrassed to say I have loved “IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER,” because it spoke to me about empathy and opening up to people or something. I talk about getting one as a tattoo, but keep changing my mind. (Which one? What font?). A Truism gets a little trite sometimes, too. Maybe the feeling I’m having is a

territorial one. A million other kids with laptops can parrot the same phrases as I do (“RAISE BOYS AND GIRLS THE SAME WAY”). No, you can’t have a connection with the same Truism as I do! (This is the way I feel about certain Karen Russell short stories, for example.) Never mind having a personal connection to an idea; how about being under the impression that I own it? *** This is a different story: We jumpstarted a Zipcar with another Zipcar last weekend, after Sophie convinced the guy from customer service on the phone that we really, really needed to get on the road. It was already dark, and there were 10 of us, plus bags. We were sprawled in a corner of the parking lot. By all accounts, I am fairly absentminded. Before we even got in the cars, while we were still four hours away from other Sophie’s house by the lake, I must have taken the bracelet off and left it on the pavement. It was a nice brace-

let — rather, a necklace I had wrapped around to fit my wrist. Smooth, tiny red beads on string; a graduation gift from my aunt and uncle. 48 hours later, after pulling back into the lot and parking the car and retrieving all our belongings, we sat down and waited for the other car of five people to arrive. Then I found a couple beads scattered amidst gravel. And then a few more! If I had to hazard a guess, I was probably the person who drove over the bracelet. I lose all sorts of things. Pens and water bottles and every Apple accessory imaginable. Sometimes my left contact disappears and I can’t see the lecture slides anymore; my sister sorts the laundry and all my socks end up in my mother’s dresser. “OBJECTS ARE MEANT TO BE USED UNTIL THEY AREN’T” is not a Truism … at least, not one penned by Jenny Holzer. But I said it to myself anyway, over and over, while picking up the beads from the ground. Contact MICHELLE LIU at michelle.liu@yale.edu .

Between Perfection and Chaos // BY SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN I was born blind to the traditional beauties of the world: crisp silhouettes against a fading sunset, precise letters on a blackboard, delightful constellations splayed across a tranquil night sky. I like to see things up close and personal. Here is my first memory — tomatoes dangling from a vine just in front of my nose, bright red with delicate tendrils reaching towards a light they cannot see. I remember thinking of how beautiful they were, so loud in their perfection, clear and sharp in my blurred world. The day I got my first glasses prescription came late, when I had already accepted my perception of the world and my position within it. I was eight

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and sitting in the back of the classroom because I was quiet and misbehaved, and then I realized that I couldn’t see anything. I could see the teacher’s hand grasping the white chalk and the arc of her arm as she scratched the chalk against the board, but I couldn’t see what she was writing. It was all blur and no meaning. I concluded that perhaps my way of seeing the world wasn’t correct. I lived in a world of imprecise edges and blended colors, of bokeh and halos. My universe was one life-sized, threedimensional Van Gogh — in the foreground, objects were separate but, as they moved to the background, they melded into one continuous image. My imagination added detail to the

CITY HALL KICK-OFF City Hall // 5 p.m.

Start your WKND on the right foot with this march to the New Haven Pride Center!

unmarked landscape, as I ran around searching for clarity amid the colors. When the optometrist told me I was near-sighted, I found myself in a ball, crying inconsolably. The revelation made me feel as if a part of my existence were being rejected. Before that moment in the classroom, I thought I had perfect vision; no one had ever told me otherwise. I loved how I saw the world in all its blended glory. We are so often told that our bodies aren’t perfection but I found it so much more devastating to hear that my view of the world was wrong. I was only a 16 out of 20, not a 20 out of 20 and it had all to do with biology and luck, not personal fault. The day I saw the world clearly for

the first time — saw it the way normal, 20/20 people did — was perhaps one of the most memorable days of my life. As I slipped on my glasses, the cool metal sliding along the virgin skin of my ears, the world suddenly shifted into an unfamiliar focus. I could see faces several feet away instead of a swirl of colors and dots. I could see the words on signs. I could see cars when I crossed streets. I could see the food on my plate. But still, I could not see what I wanted to see. I missed seeing lights as small, pulsating suns or leaves as mosaic pieces of a tree. I missed the mystery, details that only revealed themselves when I looked at them from a few inches away. I missed the comfort of knowing my world.

I think it’s funny when people steal my glasses and put them on, squinting as their eyes try to adjust to my crazy prescription. But as much as the world bends and warps through the glass, they will never understood the universe I left behind when I got my first pair of glasses. But there are those small moments, when I first get up in the morning or just before I go to bed, when I return to that space. I guess you could say this blurred place I inhabit, half-way between perfection and chaos, is the only place I can truly call my own. My paradise of hazy landscapes and blurred skies. Contact SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN at sofia.braunstein@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: The Last Supper. (Nota Bene: Judas always sits at the wrong side of the table.)


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B3

WEEKEND IMAGINES

OH DO NOT ASK WHAT IS IT — LET US GO AND MAKE OUR VISIT // BY IRENE CONNELLY

// KAIFENG WU

he basement of Commons extends below the entirety of the building, but it lacks the first floor’s old-school g ra n d e u r and charm. Instead, the walls are made of concrete and cinderblock; white hallways tunnel through the space and wire mesh blocks off utility and storage rooms. Somewhere in the basement a machine emits a high-pitched drone that seems to get louder from room to room, and one woman on the tour that I’m on puts a hand to her ear to block out the noise. Daniel Flynn, director of hospitality and maintenance for Yale Dining, who has worked at Commons for many years, asks the group of around 10 to “reimagine” the space. In 2020, after five years of planning, design and renovation, he explains, this space will be repurposed as part of the Schwarzman Center. As the PowerPoint at the current open house illustrates, the basement will be flooded with natural light and transformed into a place “where [students] can meet, socialize, eat, and/ or make things.” Most of the people there were seeing the basement for the first time. They had to work hard to reimagine the fluorescentlit “maze” as the projected palace of natural light.

T

Imagine All the People Of course, the Schwarzman Center is not news to anyone at this point. When President Peter Salovey announced in May that Steven Schwarzman ’69, founder and CEO of Blackstone Group, was giving a historic gift of $150 million to renovate Commons and create a new student center, News, alumni publications and even the New York Times hastened to cover the story. The picture of the blue Commons sign being replaced with one that reads “Schwarzman Center” received 344 likes on “Overheard at Yale.” Rumpus published an article rife with creative misspellings of Schwarzman’s name, such as “$chwarzman,”

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“Schwarzwoman,” and “Schwarzmaneater.” On Wednesday, unidentified Yale students played a practical joke by covering up campus building signs with blue Schwarzman stickers (e.g. “Schwarzman Chapel,” “School of Schwarzman and Schwarzmanmental Studies”). It’s safe to say that Schwarzman, name and donation, has entered Yale’s collective conscious. What most students lack is concrete knowledge about the project. Migs Grabar Sage ’19 said that, like many freshmen, she knew about Commons but nothing about the donation until very recently. Even some upperclassmen are unfamiliar with the details. When asked about the Schwarzman Center, Jillian Kravatz ’17 said, “I know very little.” “Only what exists in my imagination,” added Zachary Schlesinger ’17. Schlesinger was making a play on the “Imagine Schwarzman” campaign that launched last week. But the campaign is in fact a large component of the planning process. Members of the Schwarzman Center Advisory Committee, which includes administrators such as Special Counsel to the President Linda Lorimer and Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway, undergraduate student leaders like Yale College Council President Joe English ’17, and representatives from the Graduate Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, have embarked on a “listening tour” that will last through September and October. The listening tour started with open houses in Commons and the Rotunda, and continues with information sessions in all the residential colleges and graduate and professional schools. Assistant Secretary at the Office for Student Life Erin Johnson ’08 conducts one of these “listening sessions” in the Jonathan Edwards common room on a Sunday evening. She presents a thick pamphlet of glossy artistic renderings depicting the future Schwarzman Center: performances by student groups and starstudded events featuring the likes of David McCullough ’55, Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79 and other famous Yale alumni.

At each event, Yale staff or members of the advisory committee explain non-negotiable elements of the renovation — the basement, dining hall and upstairs rooms will undergo extensive alterations, while Memorial Hall, which honors Yale’s soldiers, will be “preserved and enhanced.” Committee members are careful to stress that lunch service in Commons, a concern of many students, will continue. But a lot is still up in the air. Johnson said listening tours are meant “to collect ideas from the community that the advisory committee can use to give advice to President Salovey.” The “Imagine Schwarzman” PowerPoint asks viewers to “imagine” Commons as a performance space, the upper-floor hallway as a student art gallery and the basement as a billiard room or pub. Johnson suggested the potential for various new student events in the center, such as birthday parties for all graduate and undergraduate students born in any given month. Right now the Schwarzman Center is something of a blank slate.

IT’S SAFE TO SAY THAT SCHWARZMAN, NAME AND DONATION, HAS ENTERED YALE’S COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUS. Still, representatives say that all of these ideas are subject to student and community opinion. Attendees of listening sessions are asked to fill out a questionnaire that asks them what they would like to be included in the center, and what should be avoided. Ultimately, these thoughts will be compiled into a report to be presented to Salovey by Thanksgiving, which he and those who have the final say in the planning will consult in drafting final plans.

YALE PHILHARMONIA

Woolsey Hall // 7:30 p.m. The program includes Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Russian pronunciation: Kartinki s bistavki!

Members of the Advisory Committee say the response to outreach so far has been positive and encouraging. Johnson said that, because the Schwarzman Center is “a space that people know well,” most people can provide constructive responses when asked for ideas. Lorimer said it has been “extremely exciting to hear dynamic ideas from student groups.” Tyler Godoff SOM ’16, a member of the Advisory Committee, said he received a lot of input while sitting outside the JE dining hall. He added that his girlfriend, who went to Emory, said “not nearly as many people would have cared” enough at her alma mater to give their opinions about such a project, and that the level of interest is impressive considering that all current Yale students will have graduated by the time it’s completed. What’s on the Program? In his donation, Schwarzman provided a significant budget for “a small dedicated staff” to coordinate activities and programming within the student center. What exactly the programming will be, and how it will differ from what is currently offered, is still undecided. The “Imagine Schwarzman” PowerPoint envisions a “virtual lunch” with Sotomayor, who last spoke in Woolsey Hall in 2014. Notable guests who give Master’s Teas could make second appearances for a large audience in the Schwarzman Center. “Foodie events,” perhaps modeled on last year’s Final Cut competition, could take place in Commons dining hall. Although administrators and members of the Advisory Committee cited these examples, they said that programming decisions are pending input and ideas from the Yale community. Berkeley College Master Marvin Chun is the only college master serving on the Advisory Committee, and while he says he doesn’t officially speak for the Council of Masters, he represents the masters’ perspective. When asked if the Schwarzman Center will be able to provide truly innovative programming, he said, “If it’s

not more than we have, we haven’t fulfilled our potential.” However, Chun also stressed that the Schwarzman Center will provide space for established activities the residential colleges can no longer accommodate. The Center could serve members of the New Haven community, such as high school performing groups or visitors who need to “grab a cup of coffee,” in a way that no building at Yale currently can. While athletic facilities are already open to the New Haven community, Chun said there is “a whole cultural world out there we aren’t able to serve in the same way,” because Yale doesn’t have a cultural center comparable to its athletic facilities. “As someone who’s a parent in New Haven, I would love for my kids to be able to come here,” he said. At a meeting between the Advisory Committee and the Yale dance community, Eliza Dach ’17 said attendees discussed the necessity of more spaces where dancers can practice. Dancers “see and care how the space could change the future of the groups they are in now,” she said. She added that space is always a pressing need because “there are so many dance groups vying for the few spaces we have.” Even if they can’t say exactly what kind of novel programming the Schwarzman Center will offer, those planning its creation are adamant about the necessity of new common student spaces, and the potential of the Schwarzman Center to provide them. Currently, many student organizations meet in residential college spaces, such as Yogis at Yale, who meet in the Berkeley basement, or the various performing groups that use the Saybrook Underbrook or the Morse Crescent. However, these spaces are no longer sufficient to house student activities. “Residential colleges are used to the maximum and we still don’t have enough spaces,” said Branford Master Elizabeth Bradley. Chun concurred that some kind of centralized space will benefit student groups that are SEE SCHWARZMAN PAGE 8

WKND RECOMMENDS: Last rites.


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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND FAETURE

HARD TO READ // BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

“Erevy asigmnent for this cuorse will be submited with perfect speling, punctutaion and acuracy.” Trouble reading this statement? Now, imagine reading 400 pages with the same jumbled letters, and finding red underscores under every sentence you type. Imagine walking into section, only to see that everyone else actually remembers what they’ve spent hours poring over in Bass. It’s highlighted with stickers, post-its and annotations. I’m lucky if I even get through the first half of the reading. I pick classes based on how thick the books are, not how interesting their synopses seem, and anything with the potential for a pop quiz is out of the question. After being at Yale for almost two years, I thought this simply meant that I was less smart than everyone else. I was proud of my ability to apply the portions of the readings I had completed to literally any of the professor’s question. I assumed that I was unable to read the material because I was overcommitted to other things outside the classroom: sleep, Netflix, this newspaper. But instead, midway through sophomore spring, when studying a foreign language became an endless ordeal, a solid concrete wall that was never going to fall, I finally plucked up the courage to admit to my dean that I was scared. “Maybe I’m not smart enough to be here anymore.” Journalists and authors publish many articles about my problem, but rarely in the first person. It’s a third-person narrative, because noone suffering from the secret could ever tell their own story, right? Wrong. Three weeks ago, I received a piece of paper. On it, a diagnosis: dyslexia. THE FEAR OF FAILING “I hear you have dyslexia,” someone said to me a couple weeks ago. He said the word in a hushed tone, as if offering a form of protection from the people around me. She was right to offer protection: When I told other people, their expressions went from surprise to sor-

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row to sympathy, as they began to change their opinions of me. Still, with most people, you get the chance to change a first impression. The dyslexia comes second. With professors and figures of academic authority, on the other hand, the dyslexia can be the first impression. When Laura Schifter first began a graduate program in education at Harvard, she met with one of her professors to discuss the special accommodations she would need for exams and lecture notes. One professor told her that the department would need to be confident that the work was all her own before agreeing to these accommodations. The professor worried that dyslexia was an excuse for plagiarism. “That hit me in the face right when I started … It really made me question whether I want to talk about my disability,” she said. Together, we talked about our fears — we’re reticent to explain our disabilities to peers and professors who could judge us harshly, or expect less of us. But as highachieving students, we’re most afraid of cracking under the pressure. Why? Because it hasn’t always been easy for students with learning disabilities at Ivy League colleges. In 2010, Diane Metcalf-Leggette sued Princeton for refusing to grant her extended time on exams. She argued that the university was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, and that Princeton had mistreated her in regards to her academic goals. The lawsuit stated that the insufficient accommodations left her at the “bottom of a slanted, not level, playing field.” Even though the university eventually settled with the student, Metcalf-Leggette fought to receive h e r

learning accommodations for her entire freshman year. Thankfully, things at Yale have been different: The Office of Disabilities provides a comprehensive set of options; professors are responsive; and students have unlimited access to research, journals and speakers through the Yale Center For Dyslexia and Creativity, a research institute on learning differences. Neither Schifter nor Jonathan Mooney, an advocate for people with learning differences, had trouble receiving accommodations on an institutional basis. Instead, they dealt with a different problem: the sometimes preemptive accusation of academic dishonesty. In Schifter’s case, her professors made the assumption, but in Mooney’s case, it was sometimes peers at Brown. Not everyone understood why Mooney got access to a notetaker, extended time on exams and the possibility to alter the syllabus slightly to meet his needs. “I felt like a fraud and a phony,” he said. THE HONORS STUDENT On his website, Mooney defines himself as “Author. Public Speaker. Different.” He graduated from Brown with a 4.0 in English literature and was awarded the Truman Scholarship, which funds up to $30,000 in scholarship support for graduate school. His first book, “Learning Outside The Lines,” was published while he was merely 23. It’s an impressive resume, but still: Mooney has had the same worries about learning differences for years. Diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD i n

elementary school, he told me that he’s had a different learning diagnosis nearly every year of his life and struggled to understand how best to learn and succeed. “There’s 10 Ph.D.s over there writing dissertations and books about kids like me. But, guess who has no voice in the process?” he asked at a conference at Towson University in 2001. The answer: “The kids who live the experience. So, I’m a voice for all those kids who are silent.” Silent because, even after decades of research and analysis, the assumption that dyslexia and intelligence are mutually exclusive remained as intransient as ever. Mooney’s own story is a counterexample to that assumption, he said, and it’s a way to address the social inequality surrounding learning differences. He does not like to call them disabilities. And in light of new research suggesting that dyslexia either doesn’t exist or is over-diagnosed to help under-qualified students, he said, the temptation to hide learning differences was even stronger. The term dyslexia was first coined in 1887 by Rudolf Berlin to describe a young boy who had demonstrated intelligence and a capacity for learning, but could not read at the same rate as his peers. The term was defined in early medical journals as “Congenital Word Blindness,” with the term dyslexia not being widely used until the 1930s. Yet in the early 21st century, British professor Julian Elliott and others claimed that dyslexia did not exist at all. He termed it “useless” — a simple term for “poor readers.” The British Dyslexic Association termed his papers “very damaging and insulting to people who are trying to overcome their dyslexia.” In 2004, during

THREE WEEKS AGO, I RECEIVED A PIECE OF PAPER. ON IT, A DIAGNOSIS: DYSLEXIA.

HE NAMED ME MALALA WHC // 8:00 p.m.

A preview of the film documenting the life of Malala, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up for girls’ education in Pakistan.

another wave of such claims, Serena Gosden-Hood ’08 told the News that students without learning disabilities tend to have difficulty understanding the need for special accommodations, particularly when the students were intelligent Yale students. “I would often see pathetic and embarrassed looks in people’s eyes when they heard I had a learning disability, and I would have to explain that it doesn’t mean you’re unintelligent,” she said. Sometimes, students with learning differences endure more than just embarrassed looks. In 2008, the charity Mencap released statistics that showed 82 percent of young people with learning disabilities have experienced a form of bullying. And, even though the cases of bullying can be the most extreme and I am fortunate to not identify as one of those 82 percent, I can begin to relate to the fear of backlash. “Remember, you are the same person now that you will be in 45 minutes time.” That’s what the Judy York, Yale’s director in the disabilities office, told me as she gave me the formal diagnosis. But, irrespective of what the paper says, it can sometimes be difficult to remember that it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. I can’t ice skate. I’m allergic to shellfish. Fish creep me out. I read slower. I think in pictures, not words. I want to be a writer. Albert Einstein was dyslexic. Science is hard too. So, it does not matter whether I was formally diagnosed or if I had just continued to think of myself as a right-brained, creative mind. I got to Yale without anyone even noticing my learning difference. I declared as an English major. This is only one of many stories I have successfully written in these pages. I’ve read Shakespeare and Tolstoy and got further in a language course than any statistics could have predicted. Disability or no disability, I have no plans to stop. Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Memories that will last a lifetime.


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

KEEPING MUSEUMS YOUNG // BY SARAH STEIN

// JULIA HENRY

It’s hard to believe that, having spent over 17 years in the New Haven area, I had never been inside the New Haven Museum until Thursday. I had often run past its grand columns and its “From Clocks to Lollipops” sign, but was still shocked when I stepped into the ornate foyer and heard dozens of echoing voices from the balcony above. The greeter directed me up an intimidating marble staircase and I grabbed a pamphlet on the way up: “The Nation’s Greatest Hits: 100 Years of New Haven’s Shubert Theatre.” I hadn’t expected many people to attend, but there were at least 100 signatures before mine on the sign-up sheet. The free food at the top of the staircase gave me the energy to forge into the crowd of min-

gling locals. As soon as I turned towards the exhibition, I noticed parallels between its curation and the theater itself. The doorway was clearly marked by a red carpet and bright bulbs (even some flashing ones from a real photographer) — I felt like a celebrity. I chuckled at the doorways leading to other rooms, labeled “Stage Left” and “Stage Right,” before heading towards the various displays. Plaques marked each section of the exhibit; the first one described the “Early History” of the Shubert. I was astounded to learn that since its founding in 1914, the Shubert had staged twice the number of pre-Broadway shows as any theater in New York City – I guess New Haven is cool after all! An old black

and white photo of the theater accompanied the information, and I felt nostalgia even though I hadn’t even been alive when photos were black-and-white. The authentic red usher uniforms, though intriguing, looked like they wouldn’t be fun to wear – especially the women’s one, which had the waist size of my arm. An extensive array of photos from Shubert productions, including a performance of “A Raisin in the Sun,” was displayed alongside the plaques. I sincerely had no idea that so many famous plays, including “My Fair Lady” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” had been put on so close to Old Campus. Each new photograph — including a giant one of Julie Andrews in her debut perfor-

mance — changed my perception of the city. The arrangement of the black-and-white photos combined with the lights and red carpeting brought such an “old Hollywood” feel to the room that I began to imagine performing at the Shubert (until I realized a few seconds later that I can’t act). The display tables held brightly-colored, though slightly yellowed, original playbills from the 1950s and 60s that made me wish I had been at the theater myself to collect them. Even the secretary’s index files of the productions looked interesting (mostly because they were clearly written on a typewriter). In the next room, curators had recreated murals from the Shubert’s basement. The contrast between the colorful paint and the purely

black-and-white photographs lent a more modern ambience to this side room. After I enjoyed a well-done architectural sketch of the Shubert, the mood of the night suddenly changed. A plaque mentioned that the Shubert closed in 1976 due to declining attendance, and I was sent into a panic. (Don’t worry: it’s been reopened.) Looking around me, I realized I was the youngest person at the exhibition by at least 30 years, if not 50. I could suddenly see museums like this one suffering the same fate as the Shubert — if the younger generation stops going, they’ll shut down. Though many of us raised in the digital age normally can’t pay attention long enough to enjoy a museum, I found the opening exciting. So many peo-

ple — including the exhibition organizer, Jason Bischoff-Wurstle — had put time and effort into the event and their celebration was a long time coming. As many glasses of wine clinked together, I wondered where all my peers were. No one had thought to attend an opening at a museum dedicated to the history of our home, New Haven. Though classes, clubs, and sports take up so much of our time these days, it’s worth it to head down to the New Haven Museum for an hour — not just to enjoy the elegant Shubert Theater exhibition, but to keep the art of the museum alive.

ping on metal, the whip of the wind blowing away at clothes. They’re evocative, they’re entrancing, they’re alluring, and it’s here that Orphanoudakis really does display the titular “music” and “voices,” that persuading song of nature, mysterious and inexplicable, calling out for company. “Many Voices, One Song” ends with the eponymous collection of paintings “Many Voices, One Song #1-28,” a series of 28 miniature panels, each with a different image. Some are more concrete, a yellow-tipped mountain watching over an unbroken sea, while others are more abstract, intersections of ridges and grooves and melting colors. It’s a collection of scenes, snapshots of nature, universal in their location and time, the sunset, the sunrise,

the calm, the wreck, the order, the mess, everything that Orphanoudakis has expressed in her previous paintings condensed into a mosaic of tiny squares that captures the unity in diversity, the connection of disparate things, that threads through her entire exhibit. “Many Voices, One Song #1-28” is not only visually striking, spanning an entire wall, it’s also the most satisfying piece. While the other works were simply short meditations on nature, some of them off-the-mark, “Many Voices, One Song #1-28” is the culmination of Orphanoudakis’s efforts, at once both neatly simple and fascinatingly intricate, a fitting end to an impressive showcase.

Contact SARAH STEIN at sarah.stein@yale.edu .

“Many Voices, One Song: A Fascinating, Disturbing Look at Nature” // BY ALICE ZHAO It’s an unassuming exhibit. Lining just one hallway of the Environmental Science Center on 21 Sachem Street, Ava Orphanoudakis’s “Many Voices, One Song,” is a quiet ode to the earth. As not only an artist but an environmental activist, Orphanoudakis focuses on the connection between man and nature in her paintings. In particular, she asks in the exhibit’s introduction for passersby to consider two main questions while viewing her works: Can we listen to the music of the earth? Can we hear our many voices as one song? Orphanoudakis opens her exhibit by inviting viewers to contemplate themselves — and discard the “I” entirely. In a piece aptly named “Death of the Ego,” Orphanoudakis sets the stage for an experience that is more about just feeling rather

than thinking — the music of the earth, after all, not the theory. It is the only work featuring human figures, but it is far from out-of-place. “Death of the ego” isn’t necessarily “pretty” to look at —flustered, frenzied, it’s a surreal dream in grayscale—but that’s exactly the point. It disturbs, it discomforts, it discredits what is traditionally beautiful — because nature as rendered by Orphanoudakis is not the serene landscapes, the woods, the fields we’ve grown accustomed to. Instead, through “Death of the ego,” she creates a striking world where there are no definable things, only the colors and textures of the land and the sea and the sky. Orphanoudakis’s weakest works in the exhibit are often too literal for their own good. In the trio “Up From The Earth We Rise

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER

26

#1, #2, #3” and “Melting Ice, Rising Black Water,” Orphanoudakis struggles to match the title of the piece to the actual content of the piece. For example, “Up From The Earth We Rise #1, #2, #3” feature columns rising up from layers of soil while “Melting Ice, Rising Black Water” looks like an actual ice floe torn to pieces by the sea. The result is jarring. Orphanoudakis really shines when she just lets her paintings settle on the paper, when she just lets the art speak for itself. “From The Earth: BlueGreen Ode,” is perhaps the most intriguing painting in the exhibit. It’s an interpretation of the ocean that, for the most part, looks nothing like the ocean — sheets of solid color disturbed by squares of roughand-tumble whorls and warps —

YALE FARM TOURS

Yale Farm // 2:30 p.m. Distract your too-inquisitive family with scrumptious pizza.

but it’s that little similarity, that tiny connection hinted at by the title that lends it its power. The title and quotes give the context, and the painting gives the meaning: the peaceful lull of the waves, the crash and break of the storms. Orphanoudakis succeeds whenever she gives her art and the viewer room to breathe. Her “Standing Tall” series (highlights include “Lit By Moonlight, Standing Tall,” “Falling Night Rain, Standing Tall,” “Chased by the Wind, Standing Tall”) are the strongest in her exhibit. They are nothing more than lines and shades, but they invite the viewer to get lost in their curves and angles, to put away titles and quotations for a moment and just feel nature, the stillness of the moon, the melancholy of the rain drip-

Contact ALICE ZHAO at alice.zhao@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: It was fun while it lasted.


PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B7

WEEKEND SWUGTRUCK

ALL ABOARD THE SWUG TRUCK!

START

// BY WEEKEND

Say goodbye to the annoyingly ubiquitous “struggle bus” and hello to the swug truck, your ticket to a sexily aimless and disaffected senior year. Roll a die to start the game of (senior year) life — then simply follow the directions dictated by the spaces. To spice things up, turn it into a drinking game (winner pays!). WKND wishes you godspeed. Be warned that this game is predictive of actual outcome.

“Forget” to turn thesis in on time, apologize profusely to your advisor. Skip next turn.

tment at Schedule an appoin ber of minOCS. Count the num ere, deduct utes it takes to get th es late you the number of minut ent, and are to the appointm spaces. Or advance that many just roll the die.

Hook up with last chance dance date. Advance 5 spaces.

CONCUSSION at fr at party, lose next turn.

Secure ticket to Masquerade ball. Advance 2 spaces. Leave secret society be cause you want to focus on “relat ionships you already have” and “c areer goals.” Advance 6 spaces.

Show up to every da y of Feb Club. Move forward 4 spac es. Roll and if you get higher than a 3, st ay where you are. Lower than a 3 — yo u’re hung over. Lose next turn. EX-COMMED FOR PUBLIC URINATION go back to beginning of board!

Get stuck at Myrtl e. Go back 2 spaces.

Miss flight to Myrtle. Skip next turn.

FINISH

// LAURIE WANG

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER

26

TUIB FAMILY CONCERT Slifka // 6 p.m.

Or distract your family with some lovely, soulful crooning?

WKND RECOMMENDS:

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER

Famous last words. (Nabokov said, “A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”)

26

YALE SLAVIC CHORUS CONCERT Dwight Chapel // 7:30 p.m.

As Nabokov said, “My heart speaks Russian.”

WKND RECOMMENDS: “Last Night,” by the Strokes.


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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND IMAGINES

GRADUATED CHANGE // BY IRENE CONNELLY

SCHWARZMAN FROM PAGE 3 not tied to a particular college, or that include both graduate and undergraduate students. “People congregate to space,” he said. “Open space will break down boundaries” between colleges or schools. The Schwarzman Center won’t just give undergraduates space — many feel that it will bring together students from Yale College and the graduate and professional schools in a new way. “I think one of the biggest impacts will be having a place where it’s not just grad students,” said Elizabeth Salm GRD ’18. In most places at Yale, “You see only grad students in your department.” Events at the Schwarzman Center will be open to all University students, unlike some University spaces, and students who belong to different schools will be able to come together in a common space that belongs to everyone. “All students will feel welcome,” said Lauren Tilton GRD ’16, who is also a member of the Advisory Committee. Tragedy of the Commons? But not all students are welcoming the arrival of the Schwarzman Center. Fifteen of 16 students interviewed did not think the Schwarzman Center was necessary, and 13 said that the money could be better spent on financial aid or research, two areas which students often feel are underfunded. Hannah Schmitt ’18 said she was skeptical of the fact that Schwarzman donated money for infrastructure to a university that already has state-of-the-art facilities. “There’s a universe of better things you could do with that money,” she said, noting that it might be better spent on initia-

tives that help underprivileged or minority students at Yale. Another qualm voiced by some students concerns Blackstone Group’s business practices following the housing crisis. In 2013, Blackstone, an asset management group, purchased about 50,000 foreclosed homes. After renovating the houses, they rented them out, and are currently expanding their role as a commercial landlord. An Occupy. com article on the subject, which accused Blackstone of “capitalizing on the housing crisis” surfaced on “Overheard at Yale” in May and sparked a lively discussion, during which students both criticized and defended Blackstone’s actions. However, Christine Anderson, the managing director of Blackstone Group’s public affairs arm, said that, while certainly profitable to Blackstone, the decision to buy the houses, which were “sitting around vacant, falling into disrepair,” has actually helped many communities. She drew attention to Blackstone’s hiring of 10,000 local contractors to renovate the homes, which has helped to raise property values in their communities. “[It’s] great for these local communities,” she said. Tyler Blackmon ’16, a staff columnist for the News, said the project shows that Salovey is cultivating “a legacy of expanding Yale physically,” through the two new residential colleges as well as the Schwarzman Center, rather than expanding access to Yale. Yale tuition has risen since Salovey took the reins. “It’s on Yale,” Blackmon said, “because Yale isn’t soliciting [large donations] for financial aid.” He notes that Access Yale, Yale’s financial aid initiative, is less publicized than enormous gifts such as those of Schwarzman and Charles Johnson ’54 to build the two new residential col-

leges. Administrators say that Schwarzman and Yale are still committed to serving a diverse population of students. Christine Anderson of Blackstone Group said that Schwarzman sees the student center as a “transformative” project that will “help a huge population of students for decades to come.” Lorimer added that Schwarzman also contributes significantly to scholarship initiatives, including a $40 million gift to the Catholic Diocese of New York’s Inner City Scholarship Fund, announced on Tuesday.

I GET EXCITED ABOUT HAVING A PLACE THAT’S A CENTRAL CONVENING SPOT. TYLER GODOFF SOM ’16

Administrators pointed out that although the Schwarzman Center is an infrastructure project, it will promote educational initiatives, just as funds dedicated to scholarships . “It’s hard to imagine that the Schwarzman Center won’t have vibrant educational, intellectual and cultural programming,” said Lorimer. Making the Grad(e) The Hall of Graduate Studies is in use almost every part of the day. Classes meet there daily, the dining hall serves lunch and dinner and the Blue Dog Café is usually occupied by coffeedrinkers tackling papers. Perhaps most significant and least

evident to undergraduate students, the McDougal Center for Student Life is located there, and 168 graduate students live in the building. However, all this is slated to change in the next few years. In January, Provost Ben Polak announced plans to renovate HGS, and beginning in 2017 significant changes will be made to the building, which is the closest thing graduate students have to a student center. The students currently living in the building will be relocated to a dormitory that will be built in what is currently a parking lot on Elm Street, as well as to apartments in Swing Space. The McDougal Center and its associated functions will also be relocated, but its new location has not yet been announced. Graduate and professional students have experienced a number of unfulfilled needs which undergraduates tend to take for granted. For example, HGS does not serve meals on weekends, which means that in order to use their meal plans, the graduate students living there — who do not have swipe access to the residential colleges — have to wait outside the gates of a residential college for an undergraduate to go in and then enter with them, a process many have said is tedious and frustrating. Students at the medical school who live on campus face similar predicaments come the weekend. Graduate students also lack round-the-clock access to libraries and study spaces that undergraduates have in residential colleges. Tilton pointed out that humanities graduate students studying at Sterling Memorial Library have to leave earlier than law students at the Law School Library. GPSS President Elizabeth Mo GRD ’18 added that at the law school, student groups often have to book study rooms months in advance, and

that the Schwarzman Center will do much to alleviate the need for space. The combined population of the various graduate and professional schools is far larger than that of the undergraduate student body, yet they lack access to many of the on-campus resources that undergraduates enjoy. “I think one of the things we tried to highlight was that there’s different access to different spaces at different times of day for the different schools,” Tilton said. She thinks this problem could be solved by one student center providing shared space with a common schedule for all schools. To that end, in 2013, the YCC, GSA and GPSS joined together to create a report advocating for the creation of a student center. The report, presented in 2014, recognized the need to create a space where students could “meet, learn, eat and congregate,” and compiled a list of similar universities that already had student centers. The ad hoc committee formed to create the report was the first group that combined student leaders from the three assemblies. Graduate students say that opinions about the Schwarzman Center are both informed and complicated by the upcoming renovations to HGS. While they hope to gain much from a new student center, some are “alarmed” that discussion of the Schwarzman Center is a distraction from concerns about where the McDougal Center will be and what exactly the housing options will be for graduate students after 2017. “With all the focus on the Schwarzman Center, there’s less talk about what’s going on with HGS,” said Salm. Even with a student center, a graduate-specific space is still crucial to many. Amanda Lerner GRD ’18 com-

pared concern about the changes to HGS to the feeling that undergraduates might have if a residential college were taken away. “[I’m] very eager to learn exactly what will happen with the location of the McDougal Center, [and to] know where our one dedicated space is going to be,” she said. “It’s not a viable option to maintain HGS” as is, Salm added. “We just want to know we’re being heard.” That’s why, said Mo, “it’s important to get this planning phase perfect” and to acquire ideas and feedback from all of the graduate and professional schools. Mo feels that concerns about graduate-specific needs, such as weekend dining at the Schwarzman Center, are being received well by other members of the committee and the administration. “I get excited about having a place that’s a central convening spot,” said Godoff. Most graduate students seem to agree. How the Cookie Crumbles Daisy Massey ’19 stopped by a table outside the JE dining hall where members of the Schwarzman Center Advisory Committee were soliciting student opinion. “I just wanted a free cookie,” she said, but the food offerings drew her in. Massey filled out a questionnaire and left with several “Imagine Schwarzman” stickers. Her opinions, and those of the other students, will influence the course of a project that as yet only exists in artistic renderings, and will only be fully realized once she, and all current students, have left Yale. Most student groups try to rope people in with Insomnia cookies every so often, but this might prove the most influential batch yet. Contact IRENE CONNELLY at irene.connelly@yale.edu .

// ROCKY BOSTICK

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER

26

YALE FAMILY WEEKEND GALA CONCERT Woolsey Hall// 7:30 p.m.

Featuring all the Yale classics: YSO, Glee, Concert Band.

WKND RECOMMENDS: The last straw. (And the straw that broke the camel’s back. Are they one and the same?)


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND POLITICKS

The Right to be Heard? // BY VICTOR WANG

*** Engagement is the norm at a Yale Political Union debate — but that doesn’t mean people don’t disagree. Although the YPU aims to provide an intellectual forum where the best argument can win, members say that participants very rarely leave debates with their viewpoints changed. Instead, most members treat the debates and talks as an exercise in defend-

ing their own viewpoints. Amalia Halikias ’15, a former member of the YPU’s Tory Party, said that the vast majority of students and speakers view the debates as performative in nature, and that it is rare for people to leave with their minds changed. Indeed, some members say that YPU debates are set up to encourage a rivalry. William Strench ’18, secretary of the Conservative Party, noted that there is even a physical separation between debating parties. He added that when a very conservative or a very liberal speech is given on the floor, one can expect hisses from at least half of the room. “Of course each side will think the other side’s opinions are

not simply a safe haven for conservatives to gather, but rather a place where both liberal and conservative viewpoints are defended and challenged in an academic fashion. Layla Treuhaft-Ali ’17, the chairman of the Party of the Left, said that her party considers members of the right “worthy opponents” who pose important challenges that must be addressed. And while the debate format brings disagreements to the fore, members from different parties said that respect and trust make for open and inclusive discussion. According to YPU president Simon Brewer ’16, a member of the Party of the Left, “We avoid

because they are very passionate issues that can be easily derailed in a debate.” *** While the YPU can avoid touchy issues in its debates, some organizations on campus can’t avoid such ideological clashes. In April this year, on-campus pro-life advocacy group Choose Life At Yale was denied full membership status in Dwight Hall’s Social Justice Network after a year of provisional membership, as is required of all organizations petitioning for full membership. Evy Behling ’17, who is the Secretary of CLAY, described the group’s failed attempt to join Dwight Hall’s net-

membership to the Women’s Center twice. And while the Dwight Hall member’s explanation for excluding CLAY refrained from overt moral claims, the Women’s Center directly challenged CLAY’s stance in explaining the decision to deny the group membership. A statement provided to the News by the Women’s Center noted that while the decision was not meant to “marginalize” CLAY, the two groups are at odds on fundamental moral issues. “The Women’s Center is proudly and unapologetically pro-choice,” the statement reads. “Anti-choice policies for which CLAY stands are undoubtedly harmful to women. This claim is supported by history, public

IT WOULD BE EASIER IF EVERYONE AGREED WITH ME ABOUT EVERYTHING, BUT YALE ISN’T WORTH ATTENDING IF I’M NOT GOING TO BE CHALLENGED INTELLECTUALLY. SO I’M OKAY WITH BEING DISAGREED WITH, AND, IN A LITTLE OVER A YEAR, IT SEEMS LIKE YALE HAS OVERALL TOLERATED DISAGREEING WITH ME.

wrong and lead to bad moral outcomes,” he said. Despite their stubborn disagreements, members of the YPU made it clear that they respect one another’s opinions. Conservatives interviewed generally pointed to the Yale Political Union as a space where their views are not only shared, but also contested in a balanced fashion. “The Union is the only place I have found on campus where liberals and leftists will actively listen to the arguments being made by more conservative members at Yale,” chairman of the Federalist Party Eric DeVillier ’17 said. This sentiment is not surprising given that the Union was founded in 1934 to combat the insular political culture on campus at the time. The organization is also structurally bi-partisan, containing seven parties across the political spectrum, each with different and often opposing ideologies. Of these seven parties, four — the Federalist Party, the Conservative Party, the Tory Party and the Party of the Right — identify as conservative groups. Two more lean left, and one is independent. Yet despite the numerical imbalance, members of the union insist that the YPU i s

the buzzwords and sloppy arguments that too often get tossed around in mainstream political discourse in the U.S., and instead ask for careful, nuanced conversation.” YPU members from parties on the right agreed. Helder Toste ’16, a member of the Tory Party, said he has always felt respected during YPU debates. And DeVillier said that loaded labels like “racist” and “classist”, frequently used by liberal students outside the YPU to describe conservatives, were less apt to be thrown around in a YPU debate. “These labels are often unproductive, wrong and quite stupidly applied and defended, but mostly everyone knows this and the Union does a good job keeping it at a minimum,” he said. By pushing members to respond intellectually rather than emotionally to controversial political issues, the YPU creates a space in which a variety of viewpoints can be heard. But some topics are too sensitive for such an approach. According to DeVillier, “Issues like marriage and abortion are many times off the table and will not be discussed, largely

work as “marginalizing.” “The prevailing view among the cabinet was that what CLAY was doing was not social justice,” she said. “They didn’t accept our definition of social justice, which is disappointing.” According to a former Dwight Hall member who wished to remain anonymous, the vote among Dwight Hall’s 90-member cabinet was highly divisive and raised questions of how the organization could be more tolerant and engage groups with alternate viewpoints. The former member denied that CLAY was excluded due to ideological differences, instead saying that the deciding factor was CLAY’s involvement with the Crisis Pregnancy Center, which the former member said spreads false and harmful information to women. “It’s not untrue that Dwight Hall leans left and has many liberals, but that is not why we denied CLAY membership,” the former member said. Before this, CLAY had also been denied

“We want to have diversity in everything except thought,” Jonathan Haidt ’85 said to a packed Harkness Hall classroom. Haidt, who was invited by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program to speak about political correctness on college campuses, was playing a satirical character: an admissions officer for Coddle University, Haidt’s allegory for modern universities’ tendency to shelter their students from uncomfortable ideas. With his September article in The Atlantic, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Haidt joined an ongoing conversation over what should and shouldn’t be said on college campuses. A liberal psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Haidt nonetheless sided with conservatives, criticizing colleges for “coddling” their students. Haidt’s visit coincided with a campus controversy about which he likely would have had something to say. On Sept. 12, Aryssa Damron ’18 appeared on Fox News, where she criticized the Divinity School’s decision to invite #BlackLivesMatter activist DeRay McKesson as a guest lecturer. During the interview, she also shared her experience of being a conservative on a largely liberal campus. After her interview was aired, some Yale students used social media outlets, such as the Facebook page Overheard at Yale, to make personal attacks on Damron, including asking her to stay away from campus. Damron’s views, as well as the subsequent backlash against her, raise questions about intellectual diversity at Yale and students’ openness, or lack thereof, to alternative perspectives — dilemmas that organizations like the Buckley program are trying to address. “The mission of the Buckley program is to promote intellectual debate at Yale,” Buckley president Zach Young ’17 said. “This stems from the belief that for ideas to flourish, we need to be exposed to a variety of views.” During his talk, Haidt described campus climates that force people to walk on eggshells and make students afraid to speak their minds. Yet some liberals might respond that students should be hesitant to say certain things — much of what we say, the argument goes, offends those around us even if we don’t mean it. Conservative and liberal Yalies disagree on a wide range of issues. But how do we decide when to engage with our intellectual opponents, and when to condemn them?

health and the law.” Behling said that while the Women’s Center should be a resource for all women on campus, their official pro-choice stance meant that it is not welcoming to women with other viewpoints. Since its failed attempts to join the two umbrella groups, CLAY has continued to function as an independent organization, and will host its annual pro-life conference “Vita et Veritas” in early October. And although the goal of the conference is to share a prolife perspective with the entire campus, Behling admits that it will be hard to attract liberals. She said that if CLAY had been admitted to Dwight Hall or the Women’s Center, the conference would have been more likely to attract a more diverse group. *** “Almost every professor I’ve had bashes on conservative ideas and politicians,” said Toste. In his

“Issues Approach to Biology” class, Toste said, his professor spent an entire class mocking creationists. Uncomfortable with this, Toste filed a complaint with his residential college dean, which made its way to the Biology Department. In future iterations of the same class, Toste said those specific slides about creationists were removed. He added that this example was indicative of his general experience of liberal professors mocking conservative ideas. In Toste’s case, Yale administrators and faculty consciously accommodated his conservative views. But no matter what the University or anyone else does, those views will remain underrepresented on campus for the foreseeable future. Political science lecturer John Stoehr, who teaches “Classics in Political Journalism,” said that it is reasonable for conservative students at Yale to feel marginalized among peers. “We are in a state that’s run by the Democratic Party, we are in a state where unions prevail and we are in a state where liberal issues are predominant in terms of social issues,” he said. “If you are an anti-abortionist, you might feel on the outside, just like a lot of traditional Catholics in New Haven and the state of Connecticut probably feel, as if they’re looking from the outside in.” Even so, the majority of conservative students interviewed said that Yale and its community is generally accepting of their viewpoints — at least more so than many similar institutions. “I am very grateful to be at Yale,” Behling said. “On some other campuses, students are not even allowed to start pro-life groups.” Strench echoed that sentiment. He said that he does not feel marginalized despite disagreeing with his friends on many important issues. “It would be easier if everyone agreed with me about everything, but Yale isn’t worth attending if I’m not going to be challenged intellectually,” he said. “So I’m okay with being disagreed with, and, in a little over a year, it seems like Yale has overall tolerated disagreeing with me.” History professor John Gaddis credits initiatives such as the Buckley Program with raising the profile of conservatives on campus, adding that discussions between liberal and conservative voices are reasonably well balanced now. And while some conservatives might feel that the deck is stacked against them at Yale, that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready for the fight. “The prevailing attitude is not condemning nor sympathetic,” Behling said. “The onus is on conservatives to speak up and defend their viewpoints.” JAY LEE contributed reporting. Contact VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .

//ZISHI LI

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER

26

VQ FAMILY SHOW

Davenport Theater // 9 p.m. Only bring your parents if you have Cool Parents…

Our last hurrah. Our last gasp. Our last resort.


PAGE B10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

MAKING THE BARISTA THINK TWICE // BY APARNA NATHAN

//ZISHI LI

I hate ordering at coffee shops. The interaction follows the same script every time: I ask the barista for a vanilla chai latte. He asks me, “Name?” It’s a question I’ve grown to loathe. While the Dans and Julias of the world might respond without a second thought, I brace myself for an awkward exchange. As the barista positions the Sharpie over the cup, ready to transcribe, there’s the initial moment of confusion as he tries to process the name he’s just heard. “Sorry?” he says. But still nothing. From there, it can progress in one of two ways. Some will simply attempt to approximate the combination of sounds they just heard. Others will ask you to spell out your name, requiring the additional task of convincing them that it is, in fact, N as in Nancy. It’s a tedious tradition. One day this summer, I went to a coffee shop with my friend. As she stepped up to the counter to order, I readied myself to endure the next few minutes of awkward confusion — her name, Sneha, had tripped up a number of baristas before. “Name?” “Sarah.” I stared at her in confusion, and she just shrugged. “It’s not worth the trouble,” she said. That was my introduction to the concept of a “Starbucks name”: a name chosen for its ease of pronunciation and spelling. A name that won’t hold up the line as you explain how to spell it, how it’s pronounced, what language it’s from, what it means — a conversation that no Mary has ever had to have. But, even in the seemingly trivial context of a drink order, replacing names that bear centuries of heritage with bland alternatives, all for simple “convenience,” bothered me. Surely maintaining the integrity of

your culture is worth a few minutes of awkwardness at the Starbucks counter? Lowering your standards and accommodating others’ unfamiliarity seems to validate their wariness of the foreign and different. And I have no interest in shedding my identity for someone else’s comfort, especially since I’ve already done so once before. *** I was born on August 7, 1995. But, Aparna Nathan was born on June 13, 2007, in a Westchester County courtroom, out of a stack of forms signed by an 11-year-old who hated change more than anything else Before that, I was Aparna Senthilnathan. It was the kind of name that would never fit in the ten bubbles allotted on standardized tests, the kind of name that made teachers pause while taking attendance. I knew when to expect my name during roll call, so I’d often interject before the silence could. In seventh grade, my family finally became U.S. citizens. In an Ellis Island-esque Anglicization, I walked out of the courthouse with a brand new last name chosen by my parents. At first, I hated it. The name felt strange on me, like clothes that didn’t quite fit, like I was impersonating someone I didn’t really know. Who was Aparna Nathan? What made her different? Every time I had to write my name, my hand hesitated, yearning to draw the familiar curves of the letter S, but instead settling for the sharp corners of an N. Even little things, like monogrammed backpacks or charm bracelets with my initials, were now rendered obsolete, relics of a past life. My parents insisted that it was for the best. A quick search on the inter-

net yields numerous studies showing that people with more familiar names are better liked, more trusted and more successful in the workplace, results that betray the subconscious judgments we deny but constantly make. But I rejected this. Why should I change my name to accommodate society’s misguided wariness of that which is different? The worst part was explaining it when I came to school the next day, a new American with a new name. Did you do it to be more American, everyone asked in a tone that implied assumption more than inquiry. Assimilation, like we learned in social studies, right? I insisted that it wasn’t true. I wasn’t trying to pretend to be American, and I wasn’t trying to shed my culture and my heritage. But even as I protested, I realized that I was replacing a name that had specific ties to my past, passed down from generation to generation, with one pulled out of thin air. Eight years later, acclimation has led to an indifference that I’m not proud of. My name now feels like it fits me — I like the way it sounds and how symmetrical it looks on paper. Now, no one ever has a problem pronouncing my last name, although I don’t know if it made me better liked, more trusted or more successful. But I feel like I lost a valuable opportunity. Maybe if people were expected to say my full name, wrap their tongues around the foreign syllables and understand the roots of a language that stretches back eons before English ever existed, they would better understand the history that preceded me and the path that brought me here. But at least “Aparna” still makes baristas think twice. Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .

Did He Ramble?

Holden Caulfield Goes to Toad’s

// BY GRAHAM AMBROSE

// BY IVAN KIRWAN-TAYLOR

In the summer of 1991, three international studios in the British Isles and United States came together to produce a movie. Adapted from a thin novel by acclaimed Irish writer Roddy Doyle, the screenplay follows a ragtag band of aspiring soul musicians through the tumultuous music scene in working-class Dublin. The film quickly became a smash hit, and nearly 25 years after its release, “The Commitments” has secured a spot among the most lauded Irish films of all time. Its wit and charm, authentic cinematography and square focus on life in a crumbling European city earned praise from audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The movie received its warmest reception at home, where a cast of unknowns suddenly found themselves elevated to celebrity status. Among them was twenty-one-year-old Glen Hansard, an actor from Dublin with strawberryblond locks and a golden voice. But Hansard would later describe his participation in the film as an untimely distraction from what he really wanted to be doing: music. Yet the iconic role bore fruit for the ascending singer-songwriter. Hansard would eventually release ten albums – six with the influential Dublin-based rock group he helped found, The Frames; three with Czech musician Markéta Irglová as The Swell Season, a folk duo featured in the critically acclaimed film “Once”; and two as a solo artist. The Irish troubadour’s most recent work, “Didn’t He Ramble,” not yet a month old, further refines the sparse but powerful style that is his calling card. The record opens with “Grace Beneath the Pines,” a melancholic number featuring a slow-building, minimalistic orchestral arrangement. It’s a mature ballad from an older performer reckoning with the heaviness of decades-long rock ’n’ roll. “There’ll be no more running around for me,” the singer declares over successive minor chords elegiacally emanating from a piano. Hansard is an artist, and one too experienced toforgo major creative opportunities. The cover artwork features the silhouetted Irishman in profile against a light blue sky of ambiguous hour. It’s in fact a sunrise, previewing the pre-dawn sadness of the opening track, which otherwise feels out of place against the muted mournfulness of the album. When “Didn’t He Ramble” picks up, it soars to impressive heights. The popfolksy musician succeeds by tapping into the rich creative reservoirs that first

MOND AY SEPTEMBER

28

nourished him: an ambitiousness from the cinema, heard on pompous tracks like “Winning Streak”; and a rusticly straight from the streets of the Emerald Isle in dancing tunes like “Lowly Deserter.” The fiddle duet fading out “McCormack’s Wall” gives a voice to the ethnic sensibility Hansard’s audience has come to expect. Hansard flaunts the Irish tricolor proudly, despite the entry of American sounds into his repertoire over the years. Many of the album’s best tracks toe the line between the two countries and their unique sonic lineages. “Just to be the One” floats in melodies of a faraway sadness, like a gray Irish overcast day. Other tracks like “My Little Ruin” offer softer, more timorous rock more in sync with early Coldplay than The Clancey Brothers. “Her Mercy” is one such delight of pure Americana. The song plays on brash and manifold instrumentation that might have filled Shea Stadium had Glen Hansard the advantage of time.

THE POP-FOLKSY MUSICIAN SUCCEEDS BY TAPPING INTO THE RICH CREATIVE RESERVOIRS THAT FIRST NOURISHED HIM The record’s rare misses, particularly the slow and forgettable “Wedding Ring,” overindulge Hansard’s inclination to display the fullest range of his musicianship. The track, second on “Didn’t He Ramble,” offers a much-needed reprieve from the sullen opening. It only treads too lightly, whimpering dejectedly when the weary listener requires a wake-up shout. “Stay the Road” bookends the album with buoyancy, a stripped-down acoustic ballad that returns to the basics. Here Hansard’s found the raw vigor that lends the album life, the confidence in misfortune that makes the album title a declarative and not an interrogative. He has, by now, toured the world over, lit silver screens from London to Beijing, and blazed an unlikely path toward stardom. But he didn’t ramble then, and isn’t ranting now. And though the work is not perfectly engineered for the hometown audience, Hansard conveys the pathos unique to a son of Erin. Contact GRAHAM AMBROSE at graham.ambrose@yale.edu .

EDGEWOOD PARK DAY Edgewood Park // 11 a.m.

Hikes, boats, bikes, skateboards. Watch summer die before your very eyes.

You probably want to know how a goddam jerk like me got into Yale. What my Common App was, that crap. I’m sure you heard about how I got kicked out of Pencey Prep — gee, I reckon every high schooler in America’s heard that story by now. That and “Kill The Mockingbird” or whatever. That’s all phony, though, and you know I’m right. Half the kids pay people to write their Common Apps. That stuff bores me to death. I’ll just tell you about this lunatic night I had at Toad’s on a Wednesday. I was drunk as hell off the IPAs I told my FroCo to buy me. I swear to god, when I’m in a mood I’m a swell actor. I can get people to do all kinds of things. Me and this girl Emily walked over and I danced the whole way there. I was wearing this tweed cap I yanked from my dad’s closet, and it was corny as hell, but at least no one would say I was an Econ major. I thought athletic New England high schoolers were the phoniest bastards in the world. I was wrong: It’s Econ majors. They have nice hair, though. Handsome as hell. Emily was real sweet. You’d like her. That night, she had this makeup on, and it just killed me. She was pretty old, but she had this terrific figure, and if you really got her going, you’d see she was a genius. When we got to Toad’s, I realized I was real tired. I wanted a coke, or a hiking trip or something. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I were dead. “Hey, do you wanna go to East Rock or something? The cemetery’s real easy to bust into,” I said. “Holden, I just want to dance. Can’t you stop being so juvenile, just for one evening?” said Emily. Strictly a phony. I certainly began to feel like a prize horse’s ass, standing there in my brown shoes. “Please. I’m lonesome as hell. No kidding.” I laughed, so she didn’t think I was in love with her or anything. Then we went inside. The whole thing was fun, but if you think about it too much, it’ll depress you. I danced like a maniac, like I was a bull in Spain with a spear in my ass. Then I went to the bathroom. There was this giant mirror, and I pretended all the sweat patches I saw in the mirror were bloodstains from gunshot wounds. I staggered around, like some punk had just plugged me in the guts. I was sort of crying. I don’t know why.

//ZISHI LI

I went back to the dance floor. There was this girl with pink hair that I was hot for, she was dancing, but I felt like such a sonuvabitch that I couldn’t let her see me. Besides, I was concealing my bullet wounds. I figured I’d go outside and buy flowers for Emily. In case I died and all, and I never got the chance to let her know she was a genius. God, when I saw how much they charge you for any old crap at G-Heav, I could have smashed the whole shop up. So I just stole a bouquet. They didn’t catch me, but I wish they did, in a way. I came back to Toad’s, but they wouldn’t let me in. I saw Emily on the corner of York and Elm, and she was necking this guy with the squarest jaw you ever saw. It was sort of funny, in a way. I wondered if my architecture professor was awake. I was gonna give her the flowers, as a joke, so I walked to her house. Instead I wrote “Fuck you” on her door. As I

walked back past Toad’s up to Yale Health, it started to pour rain. I was only wearing a shirt, but I wasn’t cold. I had a crazy headache. And I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life. I put on my sunglasses so I could feel like a kooky Harlem jazz piano player. They’re the supreme phonies, really. I laughed when I got to thinking how the health center overlooks the cemetery. My ass was all soggy when I sat on the grass across from the new colleges. The construction site — those new colleges — that’s crazy. You see all those cables and pillars, going up and across and nowhere. I felt in my pocket and found a damp oatmeal cookie I’d swiped from the dining halls. I ate it and sang to myself a little. God, I wish you could have been there. Contact IVAN KIRWAN-TAYLOR at ivan.kirwan-taylor@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Being on your last legs. (Also: having many pairs of legs. We recommend that.)


YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B11

WEEKEND THEATER

THE GOOD SHOW IS A GOOD SHOW // BY RACHEL PAUL

It was a dark and stormy night mid-November of last year when Elias Bartholomew ’17, Nate File ’17 and Angelo Pis-Dudot ’17 had a big laugh together. They were giggling for hours, like they normally do, but for some reason that night was different. There was something magical happening. Suddenly, without anyone counting off or anything, all three men exclaimed, “Let’s create Yale’s first and only latenight style comedy show!” They all covered their mouths with their hands, shocked and amazed at what had happened, and slowly backed out of the room. From that point forward none of the three could deny what had happened that night. They immediately set to work recruiting the best and the brightest: big names like Charlie Bardey ’17, Mikayla Harris ’17 and Jordan Coley ’17. It was a ragtag group of writers, actors and funny people, and yet from it blossomed something truly wonderful. The Good Show is a late-night style talk show that includes sketches, hilarious invented guest stars, real guest stars and musical guest stars. The show isn’t even one year old, but the cast has already performed six times in locations all around this campus, and I was one of the lucky few to get a seat at last Friday’s edition in JE: The demand was so high they had to turn people away at the door. Despite an apparently tradi-

tional set-up featuring two hosts who joke about current events, the show constantly surprised the audience by bending or even abandoning those established guidelines. Since this show, being the year’s first, was intended to recruit new m e m b e rs, t h e theme was auditions. Mid-show, two cast members took the stage and pretended to audition the hosts, prodding them to repeat their lines in different personas — //ASHLYN OAKES including that of a meaning there pig farmer. is no one vision for how a Part of the Good Show’s magic comes from its show will turn out. In one parnewness. Unlike other groups ticularly zany bit from Friday, on campus, it has no precedent Coley emerged onstage dressed and therefore a lot of flexibility. as a Jamaican chef who had forThis promises a strong future gotten to bring any of her food for the show, which I predict will with her. In doing so, Coley grow and change in ways no one mocked the traditional role of imagined — perhaps even the the talk show guest as someone cast-members themselves. The witty, prepared and put together. show’s collaborative nature also This lack of a unified vision contributes to its ever-changing also makes producing the show tone: instead of having a direc- something of a roller coaster: tor, the show’s production team Even now, with all their sucmakes all decisions together, cess, those who help produce the

show still feel amazed that they are pulling it off. Most went into the Good Show without experience in comedy writing or acting, and are learning on the fly. This sort of environment lends itself to exploration and boundary-breaking comedy. It’s how real innovation happens. And the collaborative spirit behind the Good Show doesn’t stop with the production team. In the past, the hosts have sat down with guests such as Yale College Council President Michael Herbert ’16 and Dean Jonathan Holloway. Their discussions range

f r o m hilarious to hard-hitting. In addition, they invite musical guests to perform at the show’s end: On Friday, Seungju Hwang ’17 and the Squadettes performed their own version of Uptown Funk, adding yet another artistic dimension to the show. The next Good Show will be on October 16th in the JE theater at 8pm. I’m looking forward to what the cast has in store for us and what absurd and hilarious ideas they come up with over the next couple of dark and stormy nights. Contact RACHEL PAUL at rachel.paul@yale.edu .

God, Sex, Death: Small-Town Revelation at Yale Cabaret // BY JACOB POTASH What a fucking remarkable play. Where are there millers and plowmen? Or rather, when were there millers and plowmen? Did villages like the one in the play exist in the American South in the 17th or 18th century? I don’t think it matters at all — I think “Knives in Hens” is set in a kind of primordial human community. This play, I think, is mythic, and maybe symbolic. If I were a theater historian the “isms” would flow. We’ll try this: It was effective. I’m writing this review ten minutes after the play’s finish, and I’m still carrying an emotional charge, the kind which a newspaper review is not the ideal conduit for transmitting. Three characters. A white strip six feet wide, the length of the Yale Cabaret. A white bed on either side, in front of the silhouette of a white farmhouse. One woman — only ever called “Woman”(Elizabeth Stahlman DRA ’17) — who starts in one bed and ends in the other. One belongs to her, or her husband, Willie, a plowman (Niall Powderly DRA ’16). He is rough in his looks and his demeanor, wears a tight-fitting linen shirt that reveals most of his hairy chest. These are his work clothes, and his work

seems to involve horse-care more than anything else. He often cups Woman’s face and neck; it’s a firm embrace, or if not that, a chokehold, and he kisses her often, spanks her, grabs her, smirks. They like to have sex; indeed, there’s not much else for her to do, childless and jobless as she is. They fear God. They hate the miller (Paul Cooper DRA ’16) to whom they must give their harvested wheat; he is rumored to have killed his wife and child. They are simple, libidinous, agricultural. She is ravishingly beautiful. Her face stretches, her brow furrows, with the most compelling urgency. She’s almost a kind of savant. I don’t how intentionally the actress gives this impression, but she is somewhat wild-eyed, knows strangely little about the world, is intensely bright, fierce. “Things change each time I look at them” becomes a kind of motto whose import she gradually accepts. This is a play about language, and knowledge. Writing. Permanence. Interior worlds being called forth, named, communicated. This is a play about murder, and agency, and gender. Do I seem overwhelmed?

Plot — more of it. Woman is tasked with delivering the wheat to the miller, who is an itinerant worker – he travels between towns, performing his specialist service. He is creepy, but not necessarily more so than her husband. He wears an apron over an undershirt; his pectoral muscles curve out from the sides. He is lanky, has wild blue eyes, gruff in the same way as Willie, less predictable, smarter. His and Woman’s first meeting is tense — she refuses to enter his house, she tells him he has evil breath, the prospect of rape is imminently real. He ridicules her husband. He ridicules her. Their second meeting is different: He shows her his pen — a “useless stick” a traveling musician sold to him at the market. She condemns the pen as irreligious — “It’s a devil stick you made” — but then shifts to defense. “Look how much of me there is,” he says, gesturing to his notebook before accusing her of illiteracy. She proves him wrong by writing her name. On Woman’s way between houses, a microphone drops from the ceiling, hanging in the air by a cord, and she speaks into it — to herself, to the audience, to God, or something — searching for the words

to describe God’s creation before the microphone is unceremoniously retracted into the ceiling. The thoughts that she learns to articulate in these fleeting performances she tries to express to her plowman husband, who fails to understand, condemns her ideas as irreligious, becomes almost violently aggressive. Finally, they have sex. This is the vague trajectory of their conversations. Everything is white — clothes, ground, bed, skin, house, but not the ink. Woman tries, after the name-writing episode, to rid her hands of ink before returning to her husband. But a charm has been cast — she is under the power of something new, and complicated, and dark — and she’s tormented by nightmares of the miller sprinkling black powder throughout her home. Her world’s whiteness is tainted. She goes to his house to try to reverse the ink-charm, but two things happen: She kisses him, and she falls into a night-long trance of writing. In the morning she discovers what she has written and delivers an epic soliloquy, declaring, “This town has lied. William has lied.” Her pilgrimage toward self-knowledge has begun in earnest. Things get harder to follow toward the end — there is a rockpushing ceremony, somehow a rite of passage for t h e

//ANNELISA LEINBACH

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER

27

WHAT IS A GROUP? WHC // 3 p.m.

YouTube comment: “The movie seems very witty and dark with quite a bit of nudity.”

newlyweds. She faints afterwards, in the presence of both men. The plowman espouses his theology — he suspects that God’s glory is not God, as he’s learned in church, but Creation. He proposes that Woman’s body parts have been named inadequately, that their beauty makes language futile, that Woman seems to him to reveal the glory of God. It’s a moment of clarity for Willie — an insightful heresy, that sex and the body are the true sites of revelation. But it must be too late, because Woman and the miller kill Willie, rolling the wedding-rock over him as he urinates outside. The sex they have afterwards constitutes their new shared identity, their awakenedness. Does literacy compel people to kill their spouses? It’s as if the knowledge the two have tapped into breaks their old faith — in the town’s traditions, in the humble finitude of an unhappy smalltown marriage. Tellingly, the miller lives outside of the village; his and the Woman’s knowledge turns them into wanderers, outsiders. Much is made of language, and of names. Once something has a name, the miller says, it has a use. Maybe Woman’s important realization is about her name: that her being called “Woman” is not unrelated to the terribly small sphere of possibility in which she lives, and has sex, and carries bags of flour. She realizes names matter and that she can change and invent them. Is this the story of her liberation? Is it a retelling of Genesis? A monograph on the terrible power of autonomy? “Knives in Hens,” written by David Harrower and directed by Jesse Rasmussen DRA ’17, presents its conflict physically: Woman is pulled between two poles — white, pastoral, brute simplicity and the inky moral uncertainty of interiority and the written word. I’ve spoiled the ending, but I haven’t done the play itself justice — the wide net this review cast missed plenty of exciting details, not to mention the feeling of watching it. “Knives” runs tonight and Saturday night at the Yale Cabaret. Contact JACOB POTASH at jacob.potash@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Nice guys & gals who finish last. (In all senses of the word “finish.”)


PAGE B12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

WHAT’S THE (POLITICAL) WEATHER WITH BILL AYERS // BY ROHAN NAIK

Bill Ayers was once known for setting off bombs during his time with the revolutionary communist group, the Weather Underground, in protest against the U.S. government. Since then he’s become an established academic in the field of education theory. The divisive public figure visited campus on Monday to debate marketbased school reform with the YPU, and sat down with WKND to talk politics and activism in America. Q: What are the biggest problems in the American education system? A: The biggest problem we’re facing in education mirrors the problems we’re facing in society — inequality, unequal access and a sense of despair among masses of people that their lives can be meaningful and purposeful. What we’re facing in education is a wellfunded, corporate movement that is doing nothing to alleviate problems facing children of color and children of the poor. The corporate school reform movement is doubling down on all the features that have created the failing schools in the first place — an obsession with standardized testing and an obsession with obedience and conformity, rather than initiative, creativity and imagination. They have a sense that control is a way to get poor kids to learn rather than experience and a breadth of opportunities. I feel like we’re in a very backwards moment in schools right now. In spite of the fact that the corporate school reformers have had the big megaphone, much money and bipartisan support for 25 years, they still don’t have buy-in from parents, communities or educators. Q: What do you mean by “buy-in”? A: Across the country there’s a growing movement of parents involved in what’s called the opt-out movement. In New York state last spring, the largest civil disobedience in the history of history of the U.S. happened when 20% of parents

//COURTESY OF BILL AYERS

kept their kids home rather than allow them to take standardized tests … I think people have had it. They feel that the privileged don’t do this to their kids, so why do the rest of us have to play this high-stakes, relentless game? People are fed up with it, and they should be. Q: In an interview with the media outlet “Truthout” you said, “We’re living in the darkest times for teachers that I’ve ever seen in my life.” Could you expand? A: What I mean is that teachers have come to represent all the problems of urban education in common discourse. It’s not only untrue and deeply unfair, but it drives people away from the profession. The assumption that teachers are causing the failure in urban schools is patently false and demonstrably false. It’s absurd. Any time a politician says, “We need to get the lazy, incompetent teachers out of the classroom,” everyone nods dully. But that’s the wrong frame [of mind]. Q: I want to make a transition to talk explicitly about politics. How would you define your political views? A: As an educator, I’ve spent my whole life opposing labels. I’ve resisted any notion that you can sum me up with some of my politics in an easy way. If you were to insist on labeling me, when it comes to economics, I’m a socialist. When it comes to government, I’m a bit of an anarchist. When it comes to [the] First Amendment I’m a fundamentalist. I think labels are weak and lazy, and they don’t capture the complexity of what it means to be a First Amendment fundamentalist

[LABEL S] DON ’ T CA P T U R E THE COMPLEXITY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A FIRST AMENDMENT FUNDAMENTALIST THAT IS ALSO A SOCIAL I ST, A NA R C H I ST AND COMMUNIST.

that is also a socialist, anarchist and communist. But I am all of those things. At 18 I thought of myself as an anarchist communist, and I still am, but that doesn’t tell you where I land. I’ve been very active not only in education reform but also in the peace movement. I think we live in a war nation and a militaristic nation. You can see it everywhere, except that we’ve become so accustomed to it. You don’t see it because you’re in it. All the pseudo-patriotism, the marching of military people in sporting events, the ROTC in high schools — this is all a terrible, terrible development for our country. The fact that you spend a trillion dollars on the military and pretend we cannot fund schools is a catastrophe. Q: What is your response to allegations that you committed terrorism? A: It’s not true. It’s interesting how that word gets bandied about in a way that covers a multitude of charges and sins. The kid who killed people in Charleston — the FBI couldn’t figure out how to charge him as a terrorist, but his act was pure terrorism. What we [Weather Underground] did was to destroy government property, commit acts of extreme vandalism without terrorizing anyone. We were trying to raise a screaming alarm about a terrorist war. Six-thousand people a week were being killed by our government, with no end in sight. How do you interrupt that? You go to demonstrations, you write letters, you get arrested, you create civil disobedience, you build a nonviolent peace movement. We did all of that and the war went on. What we did was to raise a screaming alarm. Our rhetoric was excessive, as was the rhetoric of many people. It was no different from what the Catholic Left or the Black Panthers were doing. While I regret many things in my life, I regret nothing about what I did to oppose the government’s genocide in Vietnam. That was a war of terror. John McCain and John Kerry committed acts of terrorism. John Kerry even came back and told the Senate “We commit war crimes every day as an act of policy, not choice.” That was a true reading of what was going on. How do you stop your country from committing

genocide? No one really knows. That whole narrative blew up because no one could figure out how to run against Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton started it all by saying we don’t know who this guy is and he has sketchy friends (myself). I like to think that his association with me got him elected. Q: What do you think of President Obama’s term in office? In what ways has it disappointed you? A: Great men don’t change history; great movements change history. Barack Obama is exactly who he said he was when he ran for president. He said, “I’m a moderate, middleof-the-road, pragmatic politician.” I did know him back then, and his record in Illinois reflects this. The right wing looked at him through 2008 and today as a secret Muslim and secret socialist with black nationalist tendencies, and the left saw him as winking in my direction. He wasn’t, and his record shows that. Many liberals were disappointed, but I’m neither a liberal nor disappointed. Q: What issues do you see with the American Left? A: I don’t see much of a left. I see the Democratic Party as one of the two greatest war parties that ever existed in history. Even calling them parties is in many ways misdirecting; they’re collections of factions that align and realign. What they all agree is that Wall Street should be mainly unfettered because that’s where wealth and prosperity come from. And they all agree that the Pentagon should call the shots when it comes to policy around war and resources. Q: What about with new left social movements? A: When it comes to movements, like Black Lives Matter or the queer rights movement, I think the difficult challenge is to create … a large social movement that can fundamentally transform society. Learning to talk together like this is a revolutionary act. I think that the Black Lives Matter people in conversation with [the] feminist movement in conversation with the queer upsurge are very hopeful. If you look at Black Lives Matter in Chicago, or Black Youth Project 100

or We Charge Genocide, they very much are composed of all kinds of people, but they’re driven by an ideology that is queer-informed black liberation. I think that’s a very hopeful thing. The queer movement has been so exciting because they’ve shown people a different way to organize, not hierarchical but much more horizontal. And the Black Lives Matter people take that very seriously. In Black Lives Matter, leadership is much more diffuse and the organization is leaderful, not leaderless. Q: Could you use one word to describe Republican presidential debates? A: Comical or tragic. Comatragic. It’s a rabid racist statement to the bottom. Q: One word to describe Donald Trump? A: Megalomaniac. Q: Would you like to see Bernie Sanders as a new left candidate? A: I think it’s great that Bernie Sanders is exciting people. William Sapphire said the other day that Bernie Sanders is no more a socialist than George Bush, and he had a point. If by socialism you mean public works and social security, the whole government is socialist in that sense, but they’re not really socialist in asking to end exploitation of capitalism or share the wealth. Socialism is a common view, and the fact that Bernie Sanders is speaking about wage inequality and war and peace is good. I don’t think he’s clear on questions of race and racism. I don’t think he’s bringing that to the table nor excites a base that could be important to him. Q: Movements advocating fossil fuel divestment have arisen on many campuses. In April, 19 students at Yale were arrested after holding a sit-in that advocated divestment. What are your thoughts on fossil fuel divestment and what would you say to the Yale administration? A: I’m not close enough to it to be an interventionist, but I’m very supportive from afar of these students. There’s really a clash of ideas [as to] what the university should be. In this clash, there are always forces that say it’s an institution that has to raise money and have

good business practices. Then there are these students, who tend to think the main things to emphasize about the university are intellectual freedom and high moral standing. If you want to be intellectually free and have moral standing, then investment in the war industry, the fossil fuel industry and apartheid is unjust. The world knows it’s unjust. How can Yale be a fair player or good place for students to be if it’s entangled with the worst aspects of our country? It’s easy to side with students, because there’s an expression wanting a free and moral space of learning. Students don’t want a business that’s invested in the bottom line and don’t think [Yale] should cash in on slave labor to make a nice building. If I said to the Yale administration, “If you could make extra money by investing in modern-day slavery, would you do it?” They would say, “Absolutely not.” Where do we draw the line? What won’t they invest in? I would like the university to be more moral, more honest, and more forthright, as well as a freer space for inquiry without being bothered by Mobile oil or the rest of it. Q: What is your advice to students interested in grassroots activism? A: I’m at the point in my life where I want to follow them rather than advise them. I don’t feel like I’m a wise elder. I’m so perfectly happy to go to Black Lives Matter protests and sit in the back and follow the kids. What I do know is that if you want to lead a politically engaged life, a moral life, or be an honest intellectual, you have to follow a certain rhythm. You have to be willing to open your eyes, not once or twice, but constantly, and try to make sense of everything in front of you. Since we live in an infinite and expanding world, you can never open your eyes enough. We should be astonished at the beauty of the world but also at the injustices. We should be outraged, and then we should act. The one thing I do regret about the ‘60s and ‘70s and my participation is the failure to rethink. If you go out and act, you have to judge what you learned from that and go back to the beginning. Contact ROHAN NAIK at rohan.naik@yale.edu .


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