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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 27 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

RAINY CLOUDY

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CROSS CAMPUS

BETWEEN JOBS Michelle Liu and Victor Wang investigate the career trajectories that characterize life after Yale. Page 3.

MAKING CENTS EXAMINING ALUMNI SALARIES

BOYS & GIRLS CLUB

GOT MILK?

Gender-neutral housing extended to sophomores, but few utilize it

YSPH PROFESSOR ADVOCATES FOR BREASTFEEDING

PAGE B3 WKND

PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY

PAGE 5 SCI-TECH

Former Eli tells concussion story

a television appearance on FOX Business yesterday, economics professor Robert Shiller said that the economy has a tendency to incentivize deceptiveness. “It’s a fundamental problem with completely unregulated or unwatched free markets,” he said. Shiller suggested that the economy needs more people who adhere to strong moral values in business — “heroes.”

Straight Outta Cambridge.

MIT’s 2018 Class Council is hosting a unique event on campus tonight, inviting the sophomore classes of MIT and Harvard to mingle at a mixer. We hope this doesn’t lead to brainstorming about how to prank Yale at The Game 2016. At least the Bulldogs are playing on home turf this November.

Who Run the Whirlpool?

Payne Whitney Gym is offering ladies-only swimming hours from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the practice pool on Friday mornings, starting today.

The new schedule will accommodate students who prefer to swim in privacy for religious or other reasons.

Beyond Planes, Trains & Automobiles. The Department

of Transportation, Traffic and Parking will host a party at Koffee? at 5 p.m. to celebrate goNewHavengo — a campaign promoting sustainable transit.

At the event, the department will recognize organizations that reduced carbon dioxide emissions by encouraging employees to use alternative forms of transit on their commutes.

Light it Up. As part of

President Peter Salovey’s three-year plan to promote sustainability on campus, Yale hired SolarCity — a solar power provider —to install panels on the roof of West Campus. Yesterday, the University announced that the array will generate enough electricity to power about 130 Connecticut homes for a year.

Bindi Babes. The South Asian

Society at Yale will rent out Lilly’s Pad tonight for their annual event: Bollywood Beats.

The dance party will feature music from movies produced

by Bollywood — the Indian film industry that makes over 700 films in several different languages per year.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1914 Rhodes Scholarship trustees announce changes in their methods for selecting scholarship recipients.

Follow along for the News’ latest.

Twitter | @yaledailynews

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Football, soccer, volleyball all face off with Dartmouth this weekend PAGE 10 SPORTS

// EMILY HSEE & AMANDA MEI

We Could Be Heroes. During

#InspiringYale. Yesterday, the Yale Instagram account posted a congratulatory instagram for Liz Quercia, a senior administrative assistant at Woodbridge Hall who won the University’s Founders Day photo contest. Yale regrammed Quercia’s photograph of the Nathan Hale statue inside Woodbridge Hall, which now has over 2,000 likes.

BLUE ON GREEN

Initiative to guide transgender community

BY MONICA WANG AND VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTERS

concussion-like symptoms, including blurred vision, difficulty focusing and sensitivity to light, in the months afterward. Still dealing with many symptoms 22 months later, Decker started a blog over the summer to publicize information about the complexity of concussions and

Two years after Yale Health extended full coverage of gender-affirmation surgery to students enrolled in the Yale Health Plan as part of a more comprehensive transgender health care package, students and administrators alike have continued to push for increased awareness of both the transgender community at Yale and the resources available to meet its needs. This semester, the Office of LGBTQ Resources introduced a new resource called TransWise that provides support and information for students navigating a gender transition.

The gender-affirmation services currently covered by Yale Health’s specialty insurance plan include counseling, hormone therapy and specific surgical procedures, according to the Yale Health Student Handbook. Surgery, which is done to change individuals’ physical appearance, does not actually take place on Yale’s campus; rather, the University refers students to specialists. While transgender students have praised Yale Health’s specialty insurance coverage, they said more can still be done to raise awareness of the options available within the LGBTQ community — a goal that may be achieved through initiatives like TransWise.

Students and administrators also emphasized that while the insurance coverage is valuable, non-medical processes like increasing commu-

SEE CONCUSSIONS PAGE 4

SEE TRANSGENDER PAGE 6

COURTESY OF PAIGE DECKER

“The Invisible Injury,” started by Paige Decker ’14, aims to spread information and advice to athletes with concussions.

BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI AND PADDY GAVIN STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After dealing with the effects of a serious head injury for nearly two years, former Yale women’s hockey player Paige Decker ’14 has launched a blog about concussions to raise awareness about the topic.

In a game during her senior year, Decker was hit hard from behind — an illegal hit in the sport — and fell face-first onto the ice. After being diagnosed with a concussion, Decker did not expect to be away from the sport for long. However, her concussion failed to heal after the expected seven to 10 days, and the former Eli continued to have

Officers trained under Swensen see high returns

BY DANIELA BRIGHENTI STAFF REPORTER The three colleges that have returned higher endowment figures than Yale so far this year have one thing in common: endowment leaders who trained under Yale’s Chief Investment Officer David Swensen.

In fiscal year 2015, Princeton,

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bowdoin College posted endowment returns of 12.7, 13.2 and 14.4 percent respectively, compared to Yale’s 11.5-percent return. These figures came out of a year that had a predicted 3.6 percent median return for large endowments, according to the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service,

Federal loan program expires

a global advisory company specializing in investment products. The three schools’ impressive performances can largely be attributed to Swensen’s portfolio investment technique, which endowment chiefs trained under him have brought to other universities, according to finance specialists familiar with university portfolios.

“The people that run the investment offices in Princeton, MIT [and] Bowdoin all used to work in the Yale Investment Office,” School of Management professor Roger Ibbotson said. “They all use pretty similar methodologies. They are different universities with different portfolios, but quite a few similarities there.”

Seth Alexander ’95 worked as a director at the YIO for 10 years before taking up the presidency at MIT’s Investment Management Company in 2006. Andrew Golden, who became president of the Princeton University Investment Company in 1995, worked SEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 6

Defeated primary candidates retry in general

BY JON VICTOR STAFF REPORTER Though the Perkins Loan Program — the oldest federal student loan initiative — will not grant any new loans as of the end of September, Yale students already receiving federal money will not be affected.

The program, which was founded in 1958 and has since provided $36 billion to 30 million lowincome students, was not renewed last fall, but was automatically extended by one year. Though Congress made a last-minute attempt to save the program, the bill was blocked in the Senate after passing through the House of Representatives. While Perkins Loans have made higher education more accessible for low-income students, the program has been criticized for unnecessarily complicating the federal financial aid process and acting as a superfluous alternative to the Stafford Loan Program, which has lower interest rates.

“It seems like in the last 10 years, every year we were on the brink of SEE PERKINS PAGE 4

JANE KIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Spears and Robinson-Thorpe both hope a higher turnout in the general will improve their electoral odds.

BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER Three weeks after her defeat in the Democratic primary, Ward 28 Alder Claudette Robinson-Thorpe announced earlier this week that she will run in the gen-

eral election to continue her bid for a fourth term.

Robinson-Thorpe joins another incumbent defeated in the primary, Ward 12 Alder Richard Spears, in choosing to run in the general election.

Both candidates were bested by union-backed candidates

in the September primary, but said they believe their chances of success will be higher in November.

Running in the general after losing the primary is not a rare tactic in New Haven.

Mayoral candidates in 2011 and 2013 ran in the general

after losing the primary, and Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson ’12 hinted throughout her campaign that she might try her hand in November even if she fell to challenger Fish Stark ’17 in the primary.

SEE GENERAL PAGE 6

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “Pretty sure I don't wear a helmet for comfort reasons rather than yaledailynews.com/opinion

Listen to children T

YET THE WAY YOUNG PEOPLE SEE THE WORLD IS MORE THAN JUST UNIQUE. While it is impossible to capture the gravity of Thomas’ message in a few short paragraphs, it is important to me to try. It is important that, every so often, I look beyond myself and recognize my own colossal privilege.

In this way my experiences and endeavors within and beyond the walls of WLH and HGS have revealed their wonderful power to humble. Try as I may, it is beyond my capacity to understand the complex forces and

L

interactions that create our collective, and my personal, present.

At the same time, Thomas’ words are empowering. The idea that life is more than it seems to one person at a given moment should motivate all of us to become less selfish, more patient, more understanding and more open-minded. When we look hard enough, or long enough, there’s almost always another question to ask, another person to listen to, another perspective to take into account.

The beauty of Thomas’ message lies not only in the rich substance of his words, but also in the fact that it was he, a seventh grader, who spoke them. Too often, society writes off and even silences youth. Yet the way young people see the world is more than just unique. Their perspective also opens up many opportunities to deconstruct the regimes of power and social organization embedded in our adult thinking and actions. We have so much to learn and unlearn from other people, especially from those whose experiences and viewpoints do not resemble our own.

We as young adults at Yale have biases. Our biases are toward what’s immediate, comfortable, reliable and established; they are against what’s unfamiliar, destabilizing, uncharted and novel. These biases preclude us from examining our daily decisions and from grappling regularly with the larger structures and ways of thinking and living that shape who we are and where we will go. It was only through teaching a class on dreams to middle school students that I could begin to formulate bold and specific dreams of my own. Just as reconstructing the past can help us envision possible futures, listening to the perspectives of young people like Thomas has allowed me to conceptualize my own future as an aspiring teacher. To me, teaching entails being a lifelong student.

Seeking knowledge about issues and experiences that diverge radically from our own is not a futile task. Far from it.

Reflecting on Thomas’ wisdom has led me to conclude that a sustained willingness to listen to and respect lives beyond our own cultivates safer, healthier, more informed and more just communities. His words have also led me to conclude that sometimes, what seems simple is actually complex. Sometimes, what seems extraneous is actually useful. And sometimes, what seems overwhelming is actually refreshing.

ANDREW STEIN is a senior in Timothy Dwight College. Contact him at andrew.stein@yale.edu .

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CULTURE Sara Jones

os Angeles is a weird place.

There’s always traffic. A five-mile ride takes 40 minutes, if you’re lucky. I didn’t even have a car when I lived there this past summer, so it got to the point where I was going on Tinder dates to get rides to other parts of the city. I was living near UCLA, a campus with gorgeous architecture that would reflect the glow of the California sunset during my walks home. The green lawns there were no doubt responsible for the “collegiate” aura of campus.

As my time in L.A. went on, I heard more and more about the ongoing — now four-year-long — drought. Though some blamed the agricultural sector, new headlines appeared each day about restrictions placed on residential water use. This conversation was jarringly incongruous with the unrestricted sprinkling and watering of lawns I would witness despite this alleged water shortage. As my friend and I would drive around, we wondered how so many people could hose down their lawns midday and think they weren’t part of the problem. That got me thinking.

The Great American Lawn is a suburban symbol of having “made it.” The idealized lawn is the visual embodiment of showing how one’s life is just as well manicured.

Maybe this isn’t so immediately obvious since lawns are so ubiquitous. But their ubiquity further demonstrates their place in American culture is akin to that of apple pie. Many municipalities even require some form of lawn maintenance so that the physical landscape mirrors the homegrown values of Main Street, U.S.A. This idea maps onto Yale’s landscape nicely. Cross Campus wouldn’t be nearly as photogenic were it not for the beautifully verdant lawn in front of it. Old Campus would not be the same if the lacrosse team played “spikeball” on a field of sand. The orderly and logical way of the academy is better facilitated by a manicured mall than an unkempt fen.

The “quadrangles” on which we lay and read and pick at blades of grass are relics of the architecture at Oxford and Cambridge, which were adopted along with the other neo-Gothic frills central to Yale’s renowned grounds.

These primarily aesthetic benefits that come from lush lawns are not without environmental costs. Normal rainfall patterns do not often yield enough rain for a lawn to keep green. The Environmental Protection Agency fancies

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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.

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COPYRIGHT 2015 — VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 27

that across the country, landscape irrigation is responsible for around a third of all residential water use.

This means AUSTIN that we colBRYNIARSKI lectively use 9 billion gallons Guns & a day watering our 30 million butter acres of lawn.

Here at Yale, seven percent of the 560 million gallons of water the school consumes annually is used for irrigation, according to a January 2014 article from the Office of Sustainability. Not to mention, the golf course under Yale’s purview uses a whopping “200,000 gallons per day,” according to a March 2012 article from the same office. This is even after renovations to the course in 2012 brought that number down.

It isn’t just water, though. In a 2004 survey from the National Gardening Association, it was found that 66 million U.S. households used chemical pesticides or fertilizers on their lawns. Those households together used nearly 80 million pounds of toxic, poten-

tially endocrine-disrupting pesticides, which come with their degradation to human health and disruption to the ecosystem in which they are applied. For comparison, one study showed that homeowners use 10 times more pesticides on their lawn per acre than a farmer would use on an acre of farmland. Not very efficient.

At Yale, this isn’t a new discussion. A May 6, 1964, article in the News opened with, “Pesticide spraying will remain at Yale this spring despite the warning cries of Rachel Carson” — the scientist famous for her groundbreaking book, "Silent Spring."

Even the alternatives proposed to the wasteful obsession of lawn care have raised debate. At Yale, football coach Tony Reno told the Hartford Courant that artificial turf would replace the Yale Bowl’s grass turf field, more for practical reasons than for environment ones. In response, a group of Yale professors wrote an opinion piece to the New Haven Register criticizing the move. They cited a Yale study showing that a significant number of the 96 chemicals in fake turf are carcinogenic. The quest for “greener,” less resourceintensive grass can sprout other problems.

What can Yale do about this?

Let’s look back to Los Angeles.

As other grounds throughout the city stayed green in spite of the drought, the iconic lawn of the Mormon Church turned brown as a public display of water conservation. Yale doesn’t have to allow its lawns to completely dry out to move in the right direction. Rather, the University can take advantage of other groundskeeping techniques that are less resource-intensive — “xeriscaping,” for example, is a type of landscaping that prioritizes growing plant species that wouldn’t need a midnight sprinkling.

Yale’s current strategic sustainability plan takes laudable steps to implement a series of land use policies, specifically to reduce potable water use on campus by five percent through a water management plan. But the underlying assumption remains: Yale must preserve its lawns.

Just because we are not in L.A. does not mean that we can disregard our water usage. As the old saying goes, the grass is always greener — but who says we have to have grass at all?

AUSTIN BRYNIARSKI is a senior in Calhoun College. His column runs on Fridays. Contact him at austin.bryniarski@yale.edu .

ASHLYN OAKES/ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR

GUEST COLUMNIST MARISA LOWE

No “I” in Yale A

round the fourth grade, I began taking “I” out of my sentences. “I think San Francisco is the best city” became “San Francisco is the best city.” “I think George Washington was the first president” became “George Washington was the first president.” Like many schoolchildren across the country, I learned that removing the “I” from my sentence created a more powerful statement.

At the same time, during times of conflict the “I” was still a necessary part of my speech.

In disagreements, the “I” always remained. To step outside the first person ran the risk of being viewed as aggressive or hostile.

“I feel that you are being mean” replaces “You are being mean.”

“I feel that it was unfair of you to exclude me” replaces “It was

unfair of you to exclude me.”

To my fourth-grade self, when and when not to use “I” could be confusing. But my teachers, parents and peers drilled the rules into me, and it soon became automatic. It was okay for me to use the “I” in my conclusion but not in the body of my essays. It was unnecessary to use “I” when answering a question in class.

“I” was not always necessary to express subjectivity.

But, like many rules in writing, there were exceptions.

At Yale, I have been told that if I am to talk about poverty or race, I am to always use the “I.” Because even though I am a minority, to make a claim without using “I” would be to presume knowledge of others’ lived experiences. In seminars, students have demanded that every-

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his summer I had the privilege of teaching a class about the psychology and philosophy of dreams to New Haven middle school students. When a videographer came to document our summer program, he asked a student named Thomas to name one thing he took away from my class. Thomas thought for a few seconds and responded, “Life is a lot more than it seems.” When the teachers watched a rough cut of the video the following day, we all laughed at the vacuous gravity of this seventh grade student’s message. My class was supposed to be deep, but I didn’t think it could be profound.

Amid the hectic adjustment period that often accompanies the start of fall semester, however, I could not dismiss the immense weight — at once overwhelming and refreshing — that Thomas’ response carried. A few weeks ago, after a worsening cold and looming job interview prevented me from seeing friends after a long week of classes, I finally had a moment in which to consider my everyday thoughts, decisions and exchanges within a context greater than Yale College. For the first time as a senior, I had stumbled upon a chance for reflection. As I tried to pinpoint the most significant thing I have absorbed in three years and one month of college, I realized that the lesson Thomas learned as a seventh grader is the lesson I am learning as a 16th grader.

Through the process of making meaningful friendships, experiencing new places and cultures and plunging into the stories and systems of world history, I have come to fully and passionately agree with Thomas: Life is a lot more than it seems.

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The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission.

I was disappointed by Wednesday's page one story, “Students tire of Calhoun debate,” (Oct. 7).

The article attempts to suggest that “the debate has not significantly affected most students’ lives” but also claims that “many students have become weary of a debate they say is growing tiresome and repetitive,” and quotes a Calhoun freshman: “When you introduce yourself, people

one spell out their “innate biases” before beginning a discussion. A peer once dismissed my words in a class by saying, “You cannot make that statement without acknowledging your innate privilege first.”

But where was the “I” in that statement?

The classroom should not be a paragon of political correctness. Going around telling people what they can and cannot think because of who they are is detrimental to our college campus.

People should be making claims that can be refuted and challenged and, yes, may be offensive.

People should be able to make bold statements without being publicly shamed on the Facebook page, “Overheard Microagressions at Yale.” People should be thinking beyond their per-

sonal experiences — going to Yale would be a total waste if we could only think about things we had already experienced ourselves.

Sometimes we need to hear controversial, even offensive arguments in order to learn and grow.

If someone states, “All turtles are stupid,” let them. If you take offense to such a statement, it is probably because they are wrong.

So tell them. Instead of making them afraid to voice their opinions, change their minds.

We are young, we are bright and we should be committing to active dialogue — not shying away from it.

are like, ‘So what do you think about the name?’… You have to have that conversation so many times.” But this is exactly what having a conversation looks like. This is why President Peter Salovey’s address urging conversation about the naming of Calhoun College was meaningful.

That everyone is talking about it means that Yale is, importantly, internalizing it and questioning it, regardless of how quickly we can come up with a reasonable resolution.

Moreover, the News didn’t directly cover the well-attended,

thought-provoking panel “Charleston and its Aftermath” on Sept. 21 with Edward Ball, Jelani Cobb, Glenda Gilmore, Jonathan Holloway and Vesla Weaver, moderated by David Blight. Instead of prompting students to think about low student turnout in the rain on a Saturday (and during midterms), why not refocus on where the conversation is happening, and actively?

MARISA LOWE is a junior in Pierson College. She is a former Production & Design editor for the News.

Contact her at marisa.lowe@yale.edu .

ZELDA ROLAND The writer is a 2008 Yale College graduate and a current student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“In order to carry a postive action we must develop here a positive vision.”

DALAI LAMA RELIGIOUS LEADER

“New Haven Vision 2025” leaps hurdle

BY JIAHUI HU STAFF REPORTER “New Haven Vision 2025” moved one step closer to implementation Thursday night.

An aldermanic joint committee on legislation and community development voted Thursday evening to push the plan — a set of housing, transportation and economic goals for the city — out of committee to be considered by the Board of Alders. The plan, which establishes neighborhood zoning and development goals, will guide City Hall and developers as they change the Elm City’s urban landscape over the upcoming decade. “New Haven Vision 2025” will also help the city obtain grants and attract developers by showing them the ideal future landscape of each neighborhood, Susmitha Attota, assistant director of comprehensive planning, said.

“If you don’t have the plan in place, people can come in and change the character of the place and others will decide for you what your neighborhood will look like,” Attota said. “That’s why it shows the larger vision.

I’m sure some of [the plan’s goals] will not be implemented in my lifetime too, but that’s how it is.”

If approved by the entire Board of Alders, the plan would establish several concrete goals, including increasing the growth rate of home ownership by 3 percent over the upcoming decade and combining the Yale and New Haven public transit systems.

With the plan, the city will also commit to improving the accessibility of affordable homes in the city and ensuring that all city housing passes building codes.

Though the aldermanic joint committee passed the plan onto its next steps, it will likely pass through further revisions before it is approved by the entire Board of Alders. Several alders said that multiple proposals in the plan require more community input and debate before the Board of Alders can approve them.

For instance, Beverly Hills/ Amity Alder Richard Furlow said the zoning decisions need more

KAIFENG WU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

“New Haven Vision 2025” will move forward for review by the Board of Alders. of his constituents’ input before approval.

“I feel whatever is going to be done as far as zoning changes should really have a community or public forum before these changes are implemented,” Furlow said. “It is crucial neighborhoods are told what is going to be the suggested zoning changes, and to let the community decide

whether that fits, because after all, they live there.”

One of the plan’s proposals — to increase the number of twoway streets downtown — would also be up for further debate, Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson ’12 said.

A Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg & Knuff attorney also testified for a change to the plan because

he represented a developer who would not be able to build a large retail chain location under the plan’s zoning proposals. His testimony prompted Furlow and Hill Alder Dolores Colon ’91 to state that community input would answer controversies over zoning plans.

Implementation of the plan will not be without its challenges,

Westville Alder Adam Marchand and Attota said. Marchand — who urged alders to pass “New Haven Vision 2025” Thursday night — said although he supports the plan, its implementation would require significant funding.

“The vision and the pictures we see is of what could happen, but it takes people to invest to put in the money to build the things,”

Marchand said. “It takes funding to build a trail that goes all the way from the Sound to Bethany on the West River. What are you going to need? You’re going to need resources.”

Thirty representatives sit on the New Haven Board of Alders.

Contact JIAHUI HU at jiahui.hu@yale.edu .

Few sophomores pick mixed-gender housing

BY MONICA WANG AND SHUYU SONG STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER When Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway announced in December that gender-neutral housing would become available to sophomores for the first time this fall, students greeted the news enthusiastically. But despite this enthusiasm, few members of the class of 2018 have opted to live in mixed-gender suites.

Holloway’s announcement marked the end of a more-thanyearlong campaign by the Yale College Council. The organization first formally proposed genderneutral housing for sophomores in December 2013, after a successful push in 2012 to extend the privilege to juniors. But administrators hesitated on the issue, citing logistical difficulties as well as concerns about incoming sophomores’ inexperience in choosing housing for themselves. Specifi-

cally, administrators worried that gender-neutral housing would complicate the housing draw, especially as each residential college’s physical space is differently equipped to handle mixed-gender housing configurations. But this winter, after a drawn-out process that required the approval of the residential college masters and deans, Holloway announced that the policy could go into effect.

“Because of the way colleges and suites are formatted, it was easier to organize gender-neutral housing for some colleges but more difficult for others,” Holloway told the News on Tuesday. “It wasn’t that a particular college did not want gender-neutral housing — it was more about how [the assignment] can happen logistically.”

Despite student support for the policy change, Holloway said very few sophomores actually decided to take advantage of the genderneutral housing option. He added

YALE DAILY NEWS

The Yale College Dean’s Office announced last September that sophomores would be allowed to live in gender-neutral suites this year.

that the policy has not encountered any problems so far.

There are currently no Trumbull sophomores living in gender neutral housing, according to Trumbull College Dean Jasmina Besirevic-Regan. In general in Trumbull, few students of any year choose to live in gender-neutral suites, she added, noting that only about one suite each year houses mixed-gender occupants.

Pierson College Dean Amerigo Fabbri said there are a “handful” of students in his college who chose to live in gender-neutral configurations. The deans of the other 10 colleges did not return requests for comment.

Trumbull housing representative Saran Morgan ’18 said the low numbers in her college may be due to the way the Trumbull housing draw in particular is set up, where suites are allocated by the number of male and female students in each class.

“Gender-neutral housing would probably involve some moving around of allocations,” Morgan said.

She added that only one suite of rising sophomores considered the option last spring, but the students did not end up going through with the process. Aside from possible logistical difficulties, however, Morgan said she did not have any other concerns with gender-neutral housing.

Maria Trumpler GRD ’92, director of Yale’s Office of LGBTQ Resources, said many concerns about gender-neutral housing concerns did not materialize, due to good planning and collaboration between the administration and student advisory groups.

“The big change I noticed was that first-years creating rooming groups had much more freedom to find [a configuration] that was comfortable for them,” Trumpler wrote in an email, calling the decision to extend the option a great one.

Sophomores who did take advantage of gender-neutral housing this year expressed satisfaction with their choice, regard-

less of whether they chose the option because they did not feel comfortable in traditional samesex housing or simply so they could live with their friends.

Micah Osler ’18, who lives in a suite with two females and four other males, said he chose to live in a mixed-gender suite for entirely social reasons. He noted that the experience has been “incredibly mundane” and has not caused any of the complications that some predicted.

Eight additional students interviewed all expressed their support for extending the genderneutral housing option to sophomores. But the students all said they would not personally choose the option.

Mrinal Kumar ’18 said it is possible that students have not yet felt an impact because the policy is still very new. Over time, it will likely create more positive change, he said, adding that just the implementation of the policy is a step forward. “[The policy] shows Yale’s good effort to care about gender issues among students,” he said.

Sophia Eller ’17 pointed out that the policy will particularly benefit the individuals who feel more comfortable being surrounded by friends of the opposite sex.

Recalling a friend of hers who did not get along with his roommates his freshman year and ended up choosing a single-person suite during his sophomore year, Eller noted that he might have had a better option had gender-neutral housing been available.

Eli Feldman ’16 said he has friends who have had a very positive experience with gender-neutral housing.

“I know a group of close friends, of six to seven students, [who chose] gender-neutral housing in their junior year and they loved it,” he said. “This year they chose to do the same again.”

Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu and SHUYU SONG at shuyu.song@yale.edu .

Read and be read.

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PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.”

AGATHA CHRISTIE ENGLISH CRIME NOVELIST

Alum’s concussion blog raises awareness CONCUSSIONS FROM PAGE 1 create a community for those suffering from them.

“I want people to know they’re not alone in what they’re going through and that there’s help out there,” Decker said. “The hardest part for me was not knowing how to get healthy.”

In three posts on her blog, entitled “The Invisible Injury,” Decker has introduced the purpose behind the blog, told the story of her concussion and, in a post this past Monday, encouraged athletes suffering from concussion-like symptoms to report their injuries.

She said she hopes the blog will serve as a resource for athletes to understand their own concussions and the best way to recover from them.

Katherine Holmes, nurse practitioner in pediatric neurosurgery and primary clinician in the Pediatric Concussion Clinic at YaleNew Haven Hospital, also emphasized the isolation experienced by concussed athletes. She added that, because of this, a blog like Decker’s can help bring a positive message to sufferers.

“Particularly for those that have prolonged symptoms after a concussion, it can be very reassuring to know that other people have this,” Holmes said.

Decker said that during the summer, she realized she had much to write about, and that she could use her story as a platform to bring about change in the seriousness with which athletes view concussions.

She added that she has learned much throughout the past two years, and that she feels she has a unique perspective not only on concussions, but also on how they are treated.

Although diagnosed in Novem-

ber 2013, Decker only found an effective treatment for her concussion a year and a half later.

She explained that she sought treatment from several different professionals, but her pain and symptoms remained despite these visits.

This summer, Decker sought treatment with Michigan NeuroSport, a program made up of neurological experts with “a special emphasis on concussions,” according to its website. In this approach, after a first appointment, neurologist and founder Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher refers each patient to a doctor whose specific expertise, in his view, will be able to treat each individual case.

“There’s a team from various specialties which uses their expertise to figure out the big drivers of the problems and generator of symptoms,” Decker said.

“There are so many different things that can feed into the concussion; concussions are not ‘one size fits all,’ and they need to be treated as such.”

She added that in her case, the major cause of her symptoms stemmed from her neck and the base of her skull. The actual trauma to her brain had already healed, but the structural damage to her neck continued to perpetuate concussion-like symptoms.

Even though Decker found this treatment to be more effective for her, she added that she had no complaints about the treatment she received during her time at Yale.

“Yale did everything they could to help me with the resources they had, and everyone was supportive,” Decker said. “I definitely feel there can be improvement in the way concussions are evaluated and treated, but that’s across the board, not specific to Yale.”

COURTESY OF PAIGE DECKER

Decker hopes her story can help bring awareness to the many complications caused by concussions.

And Decker is not alone in commending Yale’s medical services; other student-athletes interviewed shared similar sentiments about the quality of the University’s concussion treatments.

However, not all student-athletes reach out for help after an injury — an issue that Decker has highlighted in her blog posts.

Holmes spoke of the stigma that athletes can experience with regard to reporting concussions.

One reason for this, she said, is the mentality of not wanting to fail one’s team.

Former Yale football player John Barton ’18, whose concussions ended his football career, said that although he has been formally diagnosed with four concussions, he has also experienced many others that he kept quiet about. He added that hiding concussions has become a common practice in football.

“I absolutely felt like I had to downplay my injury,” Barton said.

“I didn’t want to let my teammates and coaches down, I wanted to get playing time, I wanted to prove my toughness.”

But with increased awareness,

both coaches and players alike have become much more understanding and accepting of this sort of injury, Barton said.

Current Yale women’s hockey forward Krista Yip-Chuck ’17 echoed that notion, adding that the blog can advance the ongoing national conversation about concussions in sports.

“I think the most important thing which is being addressed now is the awareness surrounding concussions and the cultural shift in sports to accept the severity of this type of injury, which is why things like Paige’s blog are so

important,” Yip-Chuck said.

So far, Decker has been advertising her blog through social media to family and friends. Since her first publication on Sept. 19, the blog has received nearly 8,000 views, Decker said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.6 to 3.8 million concussions occur each year in the United States.

Contact DANIELA BRIGHENTI at daniela.brighenti@yale.edu and PADDY GAVIN at paddy.gavin@yale.edu .

Loan program expiration has little impact PERKINS FROM PAGE 1 the [Perkins] program’s demise,” Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi said. “It’s finally happened.” Storlazzi added that he supports the government’s wish for a simpler aid system.

Though the Perkins program has officially run its course, students currently receiving Perkins Loans will continue to receive funding for the next five years.

Perkins Loans are only given to students from Yale’s graduate and professional schools, with loans allocated to the schools based on the need of their students, Storlazzi said. Perkins Loans have not been made available to undergraduates since Yale College adopted a no-loans policy at the start of the 2008– 09 academic year.

For the coming academic year, no new Perkins Loans will be

extended, prompting students to look to Stafford Loans or Direct Loans for the additional funds.

Mark Kantrowitz, vice president of the financial aid and higher education consulting firm Edvisors Network, said Stafford Loan limits were increased by $2,000 in 2008 with the expectation that they would eventually replace the Perkins Loan. Since then, Kantrowitz said, colleges have absorbed the additional funds while the Perkins program went on for longer than anticipated.

“I don’t think many students will notice that the Perkins Loan Program is gone,” Kantrowitz said.

Currently, the annual expenditure of Yale’s Perkins Loans is equal to about 1 percent of Yale’s roughly $350 million grant budget, Storlazzi said.

The Perkins fund has gradu-

ally dwindled over the past few years. The last federal contribution was made in fiscal year 2009, Kantrowitz said, and since then there have been no new federal capital contributions. The program’s assets has been depleted due to an inability to collect loans, loan forgiveness and fees associated with managing the fund, he said.

Perkins has loan forgiveness policies that make the loans advantageous for students who plan to work in certain fields after graduation. For example, students who go on to pursue careers in teaching, law enforcement and nursing are eligible for loan forgiveness.

Tyler Blackmon ’16, head of last year’s Yale College Council task force on financial aid and a staff columnist for the News, said the Perkins Loan Program’s expiration provides the federal

government with an opportunity to funnel those assets into different aid programs geared toward low-income students.

“There’s potential for a lot more federal funding to go toward college affordability in different ways,” Blackmon said, adding that Congress could choose to extend the Pell Grant program, for example. “If we’re devoting federal money away from that program and towards something more grant-based, then I think that has the potential to be a better system.”

Pell Grants are financial aid awards given to low-income undergraduate students by the federal government, and they do not need to be repaid.

Blackmon said that if Congress decides not to replace the Perkins program, low-income students will bear the burden. In theory, Perkins Loans are sup-

posed to go toward students with exceptional need, but Kantrowitz said that in practice, they have the same distribution as Stafford Loans.

However, many are protesting the end of the Perkins Loan Program — a petition to save it has received over 20,000 signatures so far on Change.org, a website that allows users to create online petitions.

“The students who count on a Perkins Loan to help pay for their college education shouldn’t be left high and dry when the program expires,” Michigan Rep. Mike Bishop said in a press release from the House of Representatives’ Education and the Workforce Committee.

Kantrowitz said many colleges may set up their own institutional loan programs to replace the Perkins Loans, though Storlazzi said Yale has no plans to do so.

“There’s been no discussion to set up an institutional loan program to replace Perkins,” Storlazzi said, adding that some professional schools, including the School of Medicine, already have institutional loan programs.

Schools that have historically received Perkins funding may be forced to pay back a portion to the federal government. Storlazzi said while he expects Yale will have to return some funds, he does not yet know how much.

He added that the federal government will likely give the University more details by the end of December.

In the 2013–14 academic year, the Perkins Loan Program shelled out over $1.2 billion to 539,000 students nationwide.

Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu .

GRAPH PERKINS LOANS THROUGH THE YEARS

’08–’09

720 recipients

’09–’10

400 recipients

’10–’11

1,001 recipients

’11–’12

1,019 recipients

’12–’13

’13–’14

1,031 recipients

757 recipients

= 200 people = $1 million TRESA JOSEPH/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” SOPHIA LOREN ITALIAN FILM ACTRESS

Yale-led initiative redefines ecologists’ roles

BY ROBBIE SHORT CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A Yale-led ecological coalition is working to advance sustainability in Baltimore’s parks, and ultimately, to redefine the field of urban ecology.

The Earth Stewardship Initiative brings together ecology student fellows from across the U.S. to work with ecologists and conservation advocates to develop recommendations for green space projects — recreational or aesthetic spaces in urban environments, including parks — which they then pitch to community and city leaders. Alexander Felson, professor in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the School of Architecture, started the program last year as a way to give young ecology students hands-on experience they might not get otherwise.

“We use the design process as a teaching medium,” Felson said.

It was very meaningful for us to have a conversation with people who are really invested in that space.

AMBER COLLETT FES ’17 Last year, the ESI team worked on a demonstration project involving green infrastructure in Sacramento’s American River Parkway. This year, Felson and his colleagues selected three locations in Baltimore on which to focus. The first is Patterson Park, one of the oldest parks in the city, and the second is the Upper Middle Branch, an open

area along the waterfront. The last is Harlem Park, an economically depressed neighborhood that is home to many vacant lots and neglected small parks. Each park was already the site of an ongoing project.

According to ESI project manager Caroline Dumont MED ’98, the 18 student fellows — two of whom are current F&ES students and one of whom is a 2015 alumnus — worked in Baltimore for six days in August to develop a set of recommendations that included, in Patterson Park, creating “no-mow zones” within the grassy areas and introducing new plant species to increase biodiversity within the park. In the Upper Middle Branch, they advised developing “outfall labs” that would allow ecologists and visitors to monitor the ecological health of the harbor and, in Harlem Park, renovating and reclaiming the neighborhood’s distinctive “inner-block” parks to restore a sense of local community, she added.

The projects continue to develop through communication with leaders in Baltimore, facilitated by an ecological urban design course Felson offers to allow students to build on the framework developed during ESI’s fieldwork, Felson said. Both of the current F&ES fellows are involved in the course. Recommendations for all three locations are set to be implemented into real-world projects, he added.

ESI schedules its projects to coincide with the annual meetings of the Ecological Society of America, the largest society of professional ecologists in the world, whose members help the ESI student fellows connect with local experts and leaders and develop their recommendations.

COURTESY OF ALEXANDER FELTON

The Yale-led Earth Stewardship Initiative team collaborated with ecologists and city leaders to create recommendations for green spaces in Baltimore.

In Baltimore, those recommendations focused mostly on integrating research through a bottom-up, grassroots process that attempted to address what Felson described as “cultural and community challenges” in the city — including urban blight, poverty and gentrification. In Sacramento, ESI focused on large-scale infrastructure projects, mostly concerning the transport and control of water, Felson said.

In both cases, Felson said, the key has been the placement of the ecological approach within the design process. He identified a divide in urban ecology between “studying” — gathering data from an existing urban

environment — and “shaping” — developing design experiments that themselves create environments from which ecologists can gather data. Historically, studying is the preferred method of research among ecologists, Felson said, but ESI fellows focus on the latter, which Felson said he advocates for as the future of urban ecology.

“The way in which you can get viable sustainable projects is not just about building things that we think are going to function sustainably but [about] actually developing projects that have embedded research components that help to find and provide information and feedback,” Felson said, adding that shaping

is especially important in light of the current and future expansion of green infrastructure projects and the lack of existing research.

Developers of green infrastructure projects currently rely on limited information, he said.

With this active approach to ecology, ESI student fellows involve the members of the communities in which their research takes place, according to Amber Collett FES ’17, an ESI student fellow who now works as a teaching fellow for Felson’s course.

She said she felt this interaction was particularly impactful.

“When you walk through Harlem Park as an outsider, it can feel very vacant. There are lots of vacant homes. There are lots

of vacant lots. There are homes that are literally crumbling into the parks or into the lots next to them,” Collett said. “I think it was very meaningful for us to have a conversation with people who are really invested in that space and were so hopeful about the future of that space as well.”

Dumont said ESI tentatively plans to next work in Portland, Oregon, during ESA’s conference there in August 2017.

Three Yale undergraduates worked for ESI’s Baltimore project, in the roles of project coordinator, intern and research assistant.

Contact ROBBIE SHORT at robert.short@yale.edu .

YSPH promotes breastfeeding health benefits

BY CAMERON HILL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In a nation where the news cycle is often filled with women being ejected from restaurants or stores for breastfeeding publicly, epidemiology professor Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, and his colleagues at the Yale School of Public Health are working to increase the effectiveness of programs that promote breastfeeding worldwide.

The Family Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation of Zug, Switzerland, an organization founded in 2013 focused on promoting breastfeeding, granted YSPH $680,000 last Tuesday to develop the Breastfeeding Friendly Country Index — a metric that will measure how strongly a country’s policies support and encourage breastfeeding, how positively breastfeeding is portrayed in the country’s media and how well breastfeeding promotions are coordinated within the government, Pérez-Escamilla said.

According to Irene Dörig, the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation’s manager of marketing and communications, Yale was awarded the grant due to a personal connection between Pérez-Escamilla and Janet Prince, the foundation’s program manager. When the foundation learned of Yale’s project, they noted that its goals perfectly matched their own, and decided to support it financially, Dörig said in a

Tuesday email to the News.

Yale’s project fills a void, Dörig said. It will provide a certified method to determine the effectiveness of different breastfeeding promotion programs and to compare programs worldwide, she added.

“The project’s long-term objective is to identify concrete measures a country can take to sustainably increase its breastfeeding rates,” Dörig said. “By funding such a great project, we believe we can contribute to helping make breastfeeding a matter of course worldwide — and thereby help improve public health globally.”

Though there has been an increase in the percentage of mothers in the United States who choose to breastfeed — almost 80 percent of babies born in America are now breastfed — mothers do not sustain breastfeeding for an adequate period of time, Pérez-Escamilla said. Babies should be breastfed exclusively for the first six months of life, and for up to three years after, he added. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, infants should be breastfed exclusively for six months because it supports “optimal growth and development” and “provides continuing protection against diarrhea and respiratory tract infection.”

In the United States, breastfeeding is not seen as a societal norm, though there are some countries — notably Bra-

yale institute of sacred music presents

j.s.bach

zil and Scandinavian countries — where breastfeeding is much more accepted, PérezEscamilla said. He noted that positive publicity from celebrity mothers who breastfeed has proved important in making public breastfeeding more common.

“For the vast majority of women and babies, it is absolutely the best option when starting life to breastfeed,” Pérez-Escamilla said. He did acknowledge a few instances in which the choice to breastfeed might be more complicated, for example, in the case of HIV-positive mothers.

But for healthy mothers and babies, breastfeeding is always the best option, Pérez-Escamilla said. Breastfed babies gain protection from gastrointestinal and ear infections, and their risk for obesity is lowered, he added. Furthermore, babies who are breastfed end up being more intelligent than formula-fed babies, according to Pérez-Escamilla. Mothers, too, gain benefits from breastfeeding — their risk for ovarian and breast cancer is reduced, as is their risk for diabetes, Pérez-Escamilla added.

The YSPH will host a global breastfeeding summit at the end of October. Invited experts include representatives from WHO, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.

Contact CAMERON HILL at cameron.hill@yale.edu .

JENNIFER LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

For healthy mothers and babies, YSPH professor Rafael Pérez-Escamilla said breastfeeding is always the best option.

yale institute of sacred music presents

emma kirkby soprano

lutheran masses

jakob lindberg lute

Yale Schola Cantorum · Juilliard415 Masaaki Suzuki, conductor

The Golden Age Revived 17th-century songs

Yale Institute of Sacred Music presents

GREAT ORGAN MUSIC AT YALE

photograph by patrick j. lynch

Saturday, October 17 · 7:30 pm St. Mary’s Church 5 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven

Saturday, October 10 · 7:30 pm Marquand Chapel 409 Prospect Street, New Haven

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

Thomas Murray MUSIC OF DURUFLÉ GRIEG THEOFANIDIS PARKER AND MORE

Sunday, October 18 7:30 PM WOOLSEY HALL

Free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“The soul has no gender.”

CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES AMERICAN POST-TRAUMA SPECIALIST AND AUTHOR

After primary losses, candidates run in general GENERAL FROM PAGE 1 Spears and Robinson-Thorpe have a common rationale behind their decisions to continue campaigning. The two incumbents — who must submit petitions to run in November due to their primary loss — both said higher turnout in the general election may work to their benefit.

“People seem positive, and a lot of people don’t vote in the primary for whatever reason,” Robinson-Thorpe said. “But more people come out for the mayor’s race.”

For Robinson-Thorpe, who lost to Jill Marks by only 58 of the 552 votes cast, higher turnout may elicit marked benefits.

A broken leg and ankle hurt her ability to canvas during the primary race, she said.

Robinson-Thorpe said her decision to run in the general election was motivated by a desire to continue serving her community and to see the projects she started to completion.

She said the strength of her multiyear record may influence voters in November.

Robinson-Thorpe added that her work in City Hall and with the neighborhood’s community management team, as well as her accessibility to Beaver Hills residents, demonstrate her commitment to the position.

Spears also said increased turnout at the general election could prove a boon for his campaign. In the 2013 general election, Spears received 482 votes despite facing no challenger.

He expressed confidence that the majority of those voters will support him again in November. Spears faces a tough challenge: his primary defeat to former alder Gerald Antunes came at a 64-point margin — by far the largest in the city.

Still, he expressed optimism about his chances.

“More people came to my aid when they realized they missed the primary date,” Spears said, adding that he now has eight people canvassing the ward on his behalf — twice the number he had during the primary.

Antunes said he focused his primary campaign around issues of advocating for his constituency, emphasizing Spears’ poor attendance record at aldermanic meetings.

He said he has no plans to change his campaign strategy in the general election. He said he is “confident, but never overconfident” about his chances of success.

“There’s no need to modify [strategy],” he said. “The issues are exactly the same — that I’ve got a record of doing the job.”

Antunes said his campaign

team only has around five volunteers. Spears noted, however, that Antunes’ union backing allows him to call on many more volunteers, often numbering up to 20, Spears said.

Robinson-Thorpe and Spears face a significant hurdle: neither carries endorsements from the Democratic Town Committee.

For Robinson-Thorpe, this is nothing new. Marks clinched the Democratic primary endorsement over the summer. Still, the lack of endorsement leaves both campaigns with a smaller base of resources than their opponents.

DTC chairman Vincent Mauro Jr. said the committee will firmly support Marks and Antunes.

“In both of those situations, the two people who won the primary will receive the overwhelming support of the Town Committee,” he said.

Mauro added that the margin of Antunes’ victory demonstrates the depth and strength of the connections he has forged with voters. Those connections, he said, will likely lead to an “overwhelming victory” in the general election.

Spears was first elected to the Board of Alders in 2013.

Contact NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF CLAUDETTE ROBINSON-THORPE

Ward 28 Alder Claudette Robinson-Thorpe will try for a fourth term during the general election.

Princeton, MIT, Bowdoin outperform Yale ENDOWMENT FROM PAGE 1 with Swensen for five years at Yale. Bowdoin’s Paula Volent also worked at the YIO before becoming senior vice president for investments at Bowdoin.

Speaking at a Jonathan Edwards Master’s Tea last week, Swensen highlighted the importance of hiring exceptional endowment managers.

He attributed Yale’s endowment success not to having a different asset allocation than other investors, but instead to having hired the best possible managers in each asset class.

“If you’re not going to set up an investment office with 30 or 40 high-quality professionals whose mission is to generate these returns that

are better than the market, you just won’t win,” Swensen said at the tea. “You don’t win just by taking more risk anymore.”

Somebody has to do better, of course, but Yale did better than most by far.

ROGER IBBOTSON Professor, School of Management Charles Ellis ’59, founder of the financial services firm Greenwich Associates, highlighted the importance Swensen places on hiring employees with integrity and

strong morals. Ellis added that it is no surprise that managers who Swensen mentored later became very successful leaders.

Although its endowment returned a smaller percentage this year in comparison, Yale remains ahead of Princeton, MIT and Bowdoin in its total endowment value of $25.6 billion. The only two schools with greater assets than Yale are Harvard and the University of Texas System.

Ibbotson said there is room for randomness in portfolio returns, adding that it was not significant that other universities showed slightly bigger returns than Yale this fiscal year.

“Yale actually did very well,” Ibbotson said. “Some-

body has to do better, of course, but Yale did better than most by far.”

In fiscal year 2014, Yale had the nation’s largest endowment returns with a total of 20.2 percent. Bowdoin, MIT and Princeton followed closely with 19.2, 19.2 and 19.6 percent, respectively. Ibbotson said these figures demonstrate that small fluctuations in the short term do not predict patterns in the long term.

“I imagine Yale shows up on top in the long run,” Ibbotson said.

Over the past 10 years, Yale has had annual net investment returns of 11 percent.

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

GRAPH ENDOWMENT RETURNS 2014 2015 25% 20% 15%

19.6%

20.2%

19.2% 13.2%

12.7%

19.2% 14.4% 11.5%

10% 5% 0%

MIT

Princeton

Yale

Bowdoin

ELEANOR PRITCHETT/PRODUCTION & DESIGN ASSISTANT

Navigating transgender healthcare challenging TRANSGENDER FROM PAGE 1 nication within the transgender community are equally important to individuals seeking to affirm their gender.

A Yale College student currently undergoing hormone therapy, who asked to remain anonymous because they are genderqueer, told the News that Yale Health follows the World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines in its transgender health care package.

Accordingly, individuals seeking gender affirmation — or sex reassignment, as it is called in the Student Handbook — are first required to attend several sessions at Yale Health’s Mental Health & Counseling division before they are referred to an endocrinologist who can administer hormone therapy. The particular hormones the anonymous student is taking cost $40 a month without subsidy, they said, but with Yale Health specialty coverage, they only need to provide a monthly payment of $10.

“There is a general requirement to go through hormone therapy for a couple months before you can request to have a surgery,” the student said. “The idea is to make sure that you are ready before you undergo surgery, which is pretty much irreversible.”

The student said they appreciated that these services are covered by insurance and readily available at Yale.

Two students who identify as transgender said they only heard about Yale Health’s coverage of transgender services through word of mouth, not through any official University communications. While they did not see a need to publicize transgender services to the wider student body, as the information only concerns a small percentage of the Yale community, they agreed that more communication with the transgender community would be valuable.

“I didn’t hear about this from official resources or the school, which is a problem,” said Izzy Amend ’17, who identifies as transgender. “Yale has the capacity to help transgender students, but it needs to advertise itself better.”

Still, students and administrators cautioned against framing the issue entirely around the medical and surgical concerns of being transgender. Instead, they said they hope Yale will go beyond providing coverage for transgender health care and address larger, less conspicuous problems facing the trans community at Yale, such as a lack of sensitivity from professors surrounding gender pronouns used in class. Many of these subtler struggles are mostly invisible,

the anonymous student undergoing hormone therapy said.

The University is in the midst of addressing some of these issues, with the TransWise initiative starting this fall, coordinated

by Seth Wallace, a psychology research assistant at Yale.

“We’re very proud to be able to offer not only a space to collect all resources but also a network of people who know how to navigate [the network] to support people here,” Wallace said. “It’s really an essential part of life and wellbeing [for the trans community].”

Maria Trumpler GRD ’92, director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources, said her office is also currently making progress on other initiatives such as increasing the number of gender-neutral bathrooms within Yale buildings and working with Yale’s software systems to ensure that more online outputs will display an individual’s preferred name, rather than their legal name. It is already possible to change a name through filling out a form that can be found on the University Registrar’s website, but many Internet outlets do not display the updated name.

Yale has the capacity to help transgender students, but it needs to advise itself better.

IZZY AMEND ’17 Still, many serious issues continue to challenge the trans and larger LGBTQ community at Yale.

In recently released survey results from the Association of American Universities, 28.4 percent of Yale undergraduates who identified as “other gender” — not male or female — reported that they had experienced nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching involving physical force or incapacitation. This was higher than the percentage reported by undergraduate female or male respondents.

Trumpler said her office is investigating the causes behind the high numbers. She added that other universities that participated in the survey reported similarly disconcerting figures for their “other gender” communities.

“Assault is about power, and it targets marginalized communities,” Trumpler said. “Once women and trans students aren’t perceived as marginal, the numbers will go down.”

Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu and VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

AROUND THE IVIES

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN UNITED STATES FOUNDING FATHER

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

Do trigger warnings belong in the Core?

BY KELLY FAN First-years enrolled in Literature Humanities will be reading Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” for the first time next spring. The text, added last June, will be the first on the syllabus written by a person of color.

The addition comes at a time of heightened concern about identity-based challenges in the Core Curriculum and has prompted a broader conversation about how concerns about diversity should be addressed, including a proposal to add trigger warnings to Core texts.

In April, several former members of the Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board, an undergraduate board within the Office of Multicultural Affairs which aims to promote inclusivity on campus, published an op-ed in Spectator calling for a “learning environment that recognizes the multiplicity” of student identities.

The op-ed criticizes Core texts for containing “triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom.”

A number of students, including Tracey Wang, CC ’15 and one of the authors of the op-ed, feel that instruction in Core classes needs to be more sensitive to concerns relating to student identities and ensuring that students from historically marginalized backgrounds feel welcome in classrooms through measures such as trigger warnings.

Increasing the number of texts written by diverse authors alone, according to Wang, is not an improvement if the instruction of those texts is not careful and nuanced.

“A guy in my class was talking to me about the book and how it was excessive, and how it was just there because she was a woman,” she said in June.

“I’m kind of horrified that these kinds of conversations might be brought up with Toni Morrison as well, and if instructors aren’t prepared, students are going to leave with this mindset of ‘Oh, she’s just there because we needed a black author on the syllabus.’”

One possible way to address concerns about diversity is to ensure that current Core texts are taught in a way that challenges and complicates existing

notions that have been drawn from them.

“I don’t want people to think [MorriCOLUMBIA son] simply being there is enough, and then not delve into the work as a beginning of a dialogue about inclusion and other issues of diversity and identity on campus,” Wang added. “I want a Core that teaches the texts we have in a critical and radical way, in a way that is informed by historical oppressions that have happened to make these books as powerful and foundational as they’re held up to be now.”

Farah Griffin, a Morrison scholar and a former Lit Hum instructor, points out that the Western canon itself is shaped by and is a product of instruction.

“Herodotus was not writing about a world that was ever white. The Greeks are very clear about a world where Africa exists, where Asia exists,” she said in June. “We’ve been taught to read them as kind of the greatest that Western society has to offer, and that the best and greatest have been produced by men who thought of themselves as white men. And some of those men didn’t even think of themselves or know that they were white men. It’s a construct that happened after them.”

Roosevelt Montás, director of the Center for the Core Curriculum, said that framing difficult topics in a conscientious manner is the critical responsibility of the instructor.

“I do think the conversation that should be had with faculty, and is being had with faculty, is how do you treat sensitive material in the classroom,” Montás said. “Because you can do it well, and you can do it poorly, and part of your job as a teacher is to do it well.”

According to Julie Crawford, the chair of Lit Hum, instructors undergo a variety of trainings in order to effectively teach challenging material, including a rigorous orientation for new instructors on a myriad of pedagogical issues and weekly expert lectures to discuss upcoming texts.

Still, some have raised con-

cerns about their experiences with instructors. In the fall of 2014, the MAAB held a roundtable called “On the Core—Student Identities and Experiences in Lit Hum,” inviting students to share experiences of gender and racial marginalization in Lit Hum with instructors. A similar forum was held for CC students and faculty in the spring semester.

Following the first On the Core forum, members of the MAAB met with Montás five times last semester to “continue the conversation surrounding how to support students from a variety of backgrounds so that they may feel safe and welcomed in their Core classes.” Current MAAB members did not respond to requests for comment.

“They [the MAAB members] had specific occasions in the classroom that, if you take the way they were reported as an accurate representation, were handled very poorly by instructors,” Montás said. “In all these issues these topics came up in a way that was insensitive or in a way that was offensive. We talked about what these issues were, we talked about how faculty are trained.”

“These conversations were very good and very useful,” Montás said. “What makes a Core class work is the student engagement and the possibility of genuine, honest, open dialogue. If that is not happening for a group of students for whatever reason, then the Core is not happening.”

Some feel that trigger warnings can foster a learning environment more sensitive to identity-based challenges.

Tanika Lynch, CC ’15 and a co-author of the op-ed criticizing Core instruction, said that she would like to see trigger warnings applied to Core syllabi to alert students of sensitive topics that might be disturbing to those belonging to marginalized groups and who have had traumatizing experiences.

“Even saying ‘trigger warning’ automatically elicits a lot of different opinions,” Lynch said in June. “But it just means that as we read them [the texts], we have a context around what it is that we’re reading, that people feel safe while in the classroom, because at the end of the day, what you get out of your educational experience largely

ETHAN WU/THE COLUMBIA SPECTATOR

The book “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison will be added to the Literature Humanities reading list. depends on how safe you feel in the classroom.”

As students’ calls for trigger warnings incited national concern about censorship and hypersensitivity, Montás said that faculty members have never discussed the use of trigger warnings on Core syllabi “as a possibility.”

“The Core classroom is going to be a place where you encounter ideas that you disagree with, you will encounter ideas you might even find offensive,” Montás said. “The notion of trigger warnings has always felt to be a threat to something very fundamental that’s supposed to happen in the Core classroom.”

For Crawford, the place to attend to psychological difficulties is outside the classroom, such as Disability Services or Counseling and Psychological Services. “[The discussion-based classroom] is not the same thing as therapy. It’s not the same thing as friendship,” Crawford

said in June. “It’s a place of rigorous intellectual inquiry done in the spirit of good citizenship and good community.”

However, some students feel that the principles behind trigger warnings have value—even if there is the danger of taking trigger warnings too far.

“If you’re someone who has gone through a traumatic experience, and there is something that on a deep psychological level, if you read it and see it, could trigger a very unpleasant reaction, then I understand the merit behind it,” Kyle Dontoh, CC ’16, said. “But [sometimes trigger warnings] go beyond things that could bring up certain psychological traumas, to getting perniciously close to opinions that aren’t deemed acceptable.”

The danger of this, Dontoh feels, is that this can restrict the debate surrounding a text, limiting the conversation to a “range of accepted opinions.”

“When you start putting up

warnings that say things like, ‘This is a misogynistic text,’ you’re making a value statement. You’re making everyone start from the viewpoint of ‘Okay, this is a misogynistic text, and I have to therefore approach it as a misogynistic text,’ rather than approaching it as a text and then finding that there are sexist things in it.”

Montás said that the challenge of teaching difficult subject matter has been and always be a concern of the Core curriculum.

“These are not issues that are new, and they’re not issues that will go away—that today, we’re going to find a magic formula that will address them and settle them,” Montás said. “No, they are issues that are perpetual in the nature of what we’re doing, and it’s appropriate that they be so. They’re issues that we talk about and will continue to talk about with respect and engaging with students who are experiencing that poorly.”

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

At the margin: Harvard Economics’ precarious spot on top

BY KARL ASPELUND, MEG BERNHARD AND JESSICA MIN When it comes to Nobel laureates, Harvard has plenty to brag about. The 26 affiliates who have won the Prize — including five for the economic sciences — put Harvard in a comfortable place among its competitors: first.

But with one star professor’s decision to leave the school at the end of the year, Harvard may not only have lost its 27th Nobel.

It may have lost its footing at the top of economics academia.

The news came as a shock and a huge blow. Faculty at Harvard and elsewhere have projected that professor Raj Chetty — a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant winner and one of the youngest tenured professors in the University’s history — will one day win the Nobel Prize. Undergraduates, graduates and colleagues alike adored him. And Chetty’s close ties to Harvard — he earned both his B.A. and Ph.D. here — only added to the sting of the loss.

Since his departure, the department has been scrambling.

When economics professor Pol Antràs returned to Harvard this fall after a yearlong leave, he said “morale was not at its highest.”

Chetty wrote in an email that he left for “a mix of personal and professional reasons.” Through his assistant, he declined to comment further.

Chetty’s startling resignation brought into harsh light a recent trend of faculty who depart from Harvard’s economics department to other top schools across the nation, including Alvin Roth,

who won a Nobel Prize just months before he left for Stanford.

In fact, three of the HARVARD 12 economics professors who received tenure since 2006 have since left for jobs at Stanford: Susan Athey, Guido Imbens and Chetty.

Some professors attribute the recent losses to rising competition from economics programs at peer universities. Others, however, point fingers internally to some of Harvard’s own practices, including competition with salaries, recently stagnant hiring and insufficient space.

“Raj’s departure felt like out of the frying pan, into the fire,” said professor David Laibson, who became chair of Harvard’s economics department in July, but he has met with administrators in the months since. The determination they have shown to confront challenges that have faced the department for years meant he no longer felt “overburdened” by the task ahead, he said.

Now more than ever, faculty and administrators are striving to keep Harvard’s name at the top of economics — a challenge that has never seemed so daunting.

CROWDING THE MARKET

Harvard has been a dominant name in American economics for as long as professors in the department can remember. For much of the 20th century, its reputation was rivaled only by MIT,

and even then professors recall how easy it was to recruit rising stars.

But over the past decade, Harvard has been losing that reliable foothold as other universities strengthen their departments and hiring efforts. Harvard’s economics department still attracts top graduate students and tenure-track faculty, but in recent years, the name “Harvard” just has not been enough to get people to stay, Laibson said.

“It used to be enough to say, ‘It doesn’t matter what those other guys are paying you, we’re so great you want to stay here no matter what,’” Laibson said.

“Well, that line is losing some of its bite.”

Better salary packages are one way peer departments try to lure away top faculty at rival schools.

Other universities, including Stanford, have also made efforts to attract faculty by offering lab space and specifically targeting tenured professors.

“We’ve certainly been doing a lot of hiring, and we’ve been building a core group of midcareer senior faculty,” said B. Douglas Bernheim, chair of the economics department at Stanford. “We hired Raj Chetty from Harvard; he fits that description.”

These competitive hiring efforts have created pools of talent in specific economics fields at other top universities.

“I don’t think I could have thought of any place other than Stanford to leave Harvard for,” Roth said, noting Stanford’s strength in his field of market design.

LITTAUER: A LIMITING CONSTRAINT

Ask Harvard economics professors what aspects of the department concern them, and most will start with the same issue: space.

Littauer Center, which houses the department and its professors’ offices, has narrow hallways, few commons spaces and limited office space, making it difficult for professors to collaborate with their research assistants and students. Laibson said many faculty members in the department, including himself, have to walk across Cambridge to meet with their research teams.

Economics faculty also say that the kind laboratory work common in modern economics — and exemplified by Chetty’s work on government policy — require physical space that is lacking in Littauer and scattered around campus.

“You need infrastructure to run the types of projects he is running,” Antràs said.

Bernheim said Stanford was working “on much closer collaboration and integration” between its economics research buildings to provide adequate space because of Chetty’s arrival and other new hires. He would not comment on the specifics of Chetty’s hiring package, including any lab space he may receive.

And of course, Littauer is old. It has not undergone a major renovation in decades and lacks a functioning air conditioning system.

Whether there are plans to renovate Littauer is uncertain. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael Smith would not comment on any

plans to add space to the building, though he noted that conversations about department space across FAS are ongoing.

Even more, the Fine Arts Library, which moved temporarily to Littauer in 2007 during the renovation of the Fogg Museum, compounds the problem of tight space in the building.

University professor Jerry Green said the move “pained” him and that now many books used by the economics department are housed in the Harvard Depository.

But even with the Fogg’s reopening last year, if and when the Fine Arts library might move out is uncertain at best.

“It’s a sore subject for the economics department,” professor Richard Cooper said.

EXPANDING THE FRONTIER

With these administrative and physical roadblocks, Harvard’s economics department has spurred to action, launching a campaign spearheaded by its new chair to keep its spot on top.

With a surge in support from the FAS administration, economics professors are hoping to pump vitality into the department with a series of new hires and by alleviating the burden of being the college’s most popular concentration.

Increases in ladder faculty were limited in recent years as Harvard faced challenging financial situations from the financial crisis to sequestration, and the economics department made no tenure-track hires last year. But Smith said FAS will fund new junior positions for economics this year, and he is dis-

cussing opening posts for senior faculty.

“In the past we felt that we had insufficient slots to identify terrific talent and bring the talent to Harvard,” Laibson said. “Now I feel just the opposite. If we find terrific people, we have the support of the administration.”

Laibson said increasing the department’s size with “new talent” will help retain a level of dynamism that will keep professors in Cambridge. Increasing the department’s diversity through the hiring process — a personal goal for his chairmanship — will help in that revitalization, he said.

New faculty members will also help alleviate teaching and advising burdens placed on current professors who work in the college’s most popular concentration. With 618 concentrators as of 2014, some professors say they cannot keep up with the undergraduate demand.

“The economics department feels that it’s understaffed based on its teaching responsibilities,” Cooper said, emphasizing that there are not enough faculty to teach undergraduates. “This is an ongoing tension between the economics department and the administration.”

Amidst the new hiring and departmental changes, though, administrators and faculty members have not forgotten what originally jolted them into action: the loss of Chetty, a deeply admired colleague.

“We’re very sorry to see him go. We wish him well,” Smith said.

“We hope he decides it’s better to come back.”

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS FOOTBALL FROM PAGE 10

“The Internal Revenue Service is the real undefeated heavyweight champion.”

GEORGE FOREMAN HEAVYWEIGHT BOXER AND LEGENDARY GRILLER

Two undefeated teams to meet KEYS TO THE GAME

week. Running back Deshawn Salter ’18 made his first start in place of the injured Candler Rich ’17 and made the most of the opportunity, picking up 233 yards on 29 carries, a mark that ranks fifth all-time in Yale history.

For his performance, Salter shared Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week honors with Dartmouth’s Williams, who earned 418 all-purpose yards. After coming two yards short of tying Yale’s record for most yards by a sophomore running back in a single game, Salter credited the offensive line and overall execution by the offense for his productivity.

“The bottom line is that [Salter] showed he can play well at this level,” Reno said. “I expect he’s going to get a good amount of carries when [Rich] gets back as well.”

Reno did not say whether Rich, or any of the injured trio of defensive back Foye Oluokun ’17 and wide receivers Robert Clemons III ’17 and Bo Hines ’18, will take the field on Saturday.

Dartmouth is dealing with injury issues of its own. Fifth-year wide receiver Ryan McManus, who gouged Yale last year for 188 yards and two scores, has not played since suffering an injury in the Big Green’s opening win against Georgetown three weeks ago. However, Reno said he expects to see McManus back in action on Saturday. Earlier in the week, Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens also said a return was probable.

In McManus’ absence, fellow Big Green wideout Victor Williams has exploded for 391 receiving yards on 23 catches and two touchdowns in two games.

“Williams is playing with an edge,” Reno said. “McManus has been one of the top receivers in the league for the last three years. They’ve got two threats that we’ve got to try and contain, along with the quarterback. We’ve definitely got our work cut out for us.”

In addition to a potent offense, Dartmouth boasts a formidable defense. The experienced unit is ranked second in scoring defense and fourth in rushing defense in the Football Championship Subdivision. It has scored three touchdowns, the most in the Ivy League, and has contributed to the team’s turnover margin of +5, also the best in the conference. Thirty-five percent of Dartmouth’s points have come off turnovers.

Although the Yale defense does not have statistics as impressive as Dartmouth’s, the unit has been very effective, particularly in the final 30 minutes. The Eli defense has allowed only 19 secondhalf points all season, best in the Ancient Eight.

The Bulldogs’ offense has similarly stepped up in the second half. After consecutive fourth-quarter comeback victories to open the season, the unit pieced together a complete, balanced attack against Lehigh last week, looking more like the FCS-leading 2014 squad than it had early on this season. Currently, Yale’s offense ranks 14th in total offense in the FCS. Roberts currently leads the Ivy League in passing yards per game and passing touchdowns, with 305 and seven, respectively. He has connected with 10 different receivers, emblematic of the team’s depth.

While the Elis improved on both sides of the ball last week, there is one area the team still needs to fix: penalties. The Big Green are afflicted with the same propensity for drawing flags that the Bulldogs are, as the two teams are seventh and eighth in the Ivy League with 23 and 31 penalties, respectively.

The 99th iteration of Yale-Dartmouth kicks off at 1:30 p.m. at Dartmouth’s Memorial Field. It will be broadcast on FOX College Sports.

Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .

BY JACOB MITCHELL AND MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTERS On Saturday, two undefeated Ivy League foes square off as the Yale football team takes on Dartmouth. The matchup has the potential to be an offensive shootout, as both the Bulldogs and the Big Green average more than 25 points per game. With Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year candidates — Yale’s Morgan Roberts ’16 and Dartmouth’s Dalyn Williams — potentially neutralizing each other at the quarterback position, the outcome of the game likely rests on the Bulldogs’ ability to contain Dartmouth’s fire-powered attack, rush the ball efficiently and win the special teams battle.

PREVENT BIG PLAYS

Williams has amassed 787 passing yards and 10 total touchdowns this season, six of which have come through the air. Williams’ top targets are Houston Brown and Victor Williams, the latter of whom has accounted for roughly half of Dartmouth’s receiving yards. Williams also leads the Big Green in receiving touchdowns with three. Along with the aforementioned wideout duo, Ryan McManus, who is reportedly returning from injury this weekend, averages 16.2 yards per catch and will pose a potent threat to the Bulldog secondary.

Yale’s defensive backs, led by captain and safety Cole Champion ’16 and corner Spencer Rymiszewski ’17, will be tasked with slowing the Big Green

Big test for Elis

aerial attack. It is unclear whether defensive standout Foye Oluokun ’17 will suit up Saturday after leaving last week’s game due to what appeared to be a reaggravated left arm/wrist injury.

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs’ front seven have to apply significant pressure in the pocket to the dual-threat Dartmouth signal caller. In addition to Williams’ passing prowess this season, he has rushed for 165 yards and four touchdowns.

CONTINUE MOMENTUM ON THE GROUND

In last Saturday’s 27–12 victory over Lehigh, running back Deshawn Salter ’18 rushed for an impressive 233 yards and two touchdowns in his first career start. The breakout performance came after Salter, who opened the season as the second-string running back, accumulated 51 rushing yards during the first two games. The status of former starting running back Candler Rich ’17 is up in the air, after he left last weekend’s Cornell game early in the third quarter two weeks ago. Should Rich sit out, the rushing load will fall primarily on Salter’s shoulders yet again.

If Salter hopes to replicate last week’s colossal numbers, he must continue to run physically and take advantage of the rushing lanes created by his offensive line, led by center and lone senior Luke Longinotti ’16.

Following last Saturday’s impressive performance by the O-line against Lehigh, the Big Green defense will prove a formidable opponent, as the unit has yet to surrender more than 112

yards rushing in a game this season.

OPTIMIZE FIELD POSITION

The Yale special teams played a major role in tipping the scales against Colgate and Cornell. The team leads Division I football with four blocked kicks, and kicker and punter Bryan Holmes ’17 has placed three punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line.

While the special teams did not make any game-changing plays a week ago, they will need to play a solid game against Dartmouth.

The Bulldogs cannot allow Big Green defensive back Danny McManus to rack up big yardage on punt returns and kick returns. McManus — the younger brother of Dartmouth’s senior wideout — has accounted for 175 yards on kick returns this season for Dartmouth, averaging 25 yards per return. The elder McManus has also been a threat for the Big Green on special teams this year as he has averaged 34 yards per punt return.

Yale’s equivalents — Jamal Locke ’18 and Jason Alessi ’18 — need to have big games for Yale and put the offense in prime field position to succeed.

Locke did just that only two weeks ago, returning a kickoff for 84 yards against Cornell late in the first half, a play that catalyzed Yale’s comeback victory. Locke has amassed 204 yards in the kick return game, averaging 34 yards per attempt.

Contact JACOB MITCHELL at jacob.mitchell@yale.edu and MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .

Two matches on the road

MEN’S SOCCER FROM PAGE 10 Additionally, because the Elis have a conference loss behind them, all of their remaining six games will be crucial in their attempt to win the title. Since 1975, no team has won the Ivy League men’s soccer championship with more than one league loss.

“If there was one league favorite going into the season, it was probably Dartmouth,” head coach Kylie Stannard said. “They are the defending champions obviously … They are the team to beat. Getting a result against them would be a massive boost for us as far as putting our name in the mix.”

Yale has conceded more than one goal in each of its games this year, and 11 in the last three games.

Midfielder Nicky Downs ’19 said that this week, the Elis have been actively creating a game plan to reverse this trend.

Against Dartmouth, which is second in the Ancient Eight with 13 goals in nine games and has a deep roster with eight players contributing goals thus far, an improved defensive performance from the Elis will be key.

“We are going into the game with the mentality to shut things down defensively, and then build our attack off good defensive play,” Downs said.

In a year that has thus far been marked by disappointment, Stannard noted the team’s sense of urgency in turning the season around, particularly to give seniors a positive send-off. He said in Wednesday’s practice, he reminded the team that the Eli

ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale hopes to improve its defense, which has allowed a conference-worst 24 goals, on Saturday against the Big Green. seniors have just three home games left, and that “their time is near.”

Defensive midfielder Pablo Espinola ’16, one of six seniors on the team, elaborated on what his last few games mean to him.

“Growing, up you always dream about playing Division I soccer, particularly against top-10 teams like we have done this year. However, the Ivy League is special,” Pablo said. “Every year it feels as though each Ivy League game is the biggest game of my career …

More than anything I am looking forward to playing alongside my brothers for one of my last few times” This year is Stannard’s first year as head coach of the team. His primary focus has been on altering the culture of the team, he said, and

regardless of Yale’s current record, he views this season as a success.

He highlighted the team’s offense, which has already surpassed last season’s scoring total with nine goals, as a sign of improvement early on his tenure.

“The culture, the mentality, the mindset, the fitness [and] the standards that we are asking guys to compete with every day have improved,” Stannard said. “There has been progress for sure, even though we are not seeing it in the win column as much yet.”

Kickoff for Yale’s game against Dartmouth is at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The game will be broadcast on ESPN3.

Contact KEVIN BENDESKY at kevin.bendesky@yale.edu .

Dartmouth comes to Reese YALE DAILY NEWS

WOMEN’S SOCCER FROM PAGE 10 Comparatively, Dartmouth possesses the upper hand in terms of converting offensive opportunities into goals. The Big Green is tied for first in the Ivy League with 29 goals. Yale is close behind in third, but there is a major drop off between the two, as the Bulldogs have less than half of Dartmouth’s total at 14.

“We have struggled with connecting passes, which ultimately stems from our chemistry and ability to work hard off the ball for each other,” midfielder Shannon Conneely ’16 said. “We are making it our personal goal this week to support each other on the field

in an effort to keep the ball and encourage more of an attack.”

Yale’s offensive efforts will have to overcome a stout Dartmouth defense that ranks second in the Ivy League in goals allowed, having only conceded seven goals in 11 games thanks to six shutouts.

Yale, on the other hand, has allowed 23 goals — the most in the Ancient Eight — and managed just three shutouts.

“We are working on decreasing the number of bad giveaways,” defender Dani Temares ’17 said.

“Both by being more aware on the field and supporting each other.”

Currently, Yale is in eighth place for the league, and is one of four schools — including Dart-

mouth — that has failed to secure a conference victory. Still, this weekend marks just the third game of conference play. The Bulldogs hope they can translate their efforts in practice into results on the pitch.

“We need to be focused all 90 minutes of the game,” Conneely said. “Because if we come out flat, all of the previous preparation done for a game will not matter, and we will face an uphill battle for the rest of the match.”

The Elis will kick off against Dartmouth in Reese Stadium at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Contact NICOLE WELLS at nicole.wells@yale.edu .

After losing two matches to Harvard in 2014, Yale swept the Crimson 3–0 in the Ivy tiebreaker.

VOLLEYBALL FROM PAGE 10 past three matchups when visiting the Big Green. In Cambridge, on the other hand, Yale has dropped its past two regular season matches, although the Elis beat Harvard in three sets to clinch an NCAA tournament berth in last season’s final Ivy game.

“This isn’t that crazy of a weekend, it’s more just being able to play comfortable with each other,” Appleman said.

This weekend, the Bull-

dogs will draw motivation from their 2014 victory over Harvard, as well as from their current eight-game Ivy League winning streak, which extends back to Nov. 1 of last year.

Another win over the Cantabs can push Yale to two games ahead of the Crimson, keeping the Bulldogs at the top of the Ivy standings.

“This weekend’s matchups are particularly tough and will certainly be close games, but I am excited about the opportunities they pres-

ent for us to show our resilience and feisty spirit,” captain and outside hitter Karlee Fuller ’16 said. “This is a great chance for us to rise to a challenge and play our hearts out.”

Yale looks to move to 5–0 in the Ivy League on this weekend’s road trip. The Bulldogs face Dartmouth on Friday at 7 p.m. before playing Harvard on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Contact JONATHAN MARX at jonathan.marx@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST A chance of showers, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 3pm. High near 73.

TOMORROW

SUNDAY

High of 63, low of 41.

High of 67, low of 49.

QUAIL UNIVERSITY #5 BY LUNA BELLER-TADIAR

ON CAMPUS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9 12:00 PM Yale School of Management Leaders Forum: A Conversation with Valerie Jarrett. Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama and chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, will be joined in conversation with SOM Dean Ted Snyder. Advance registration required. Bags of any kind are strongly discouraged. Backpacks are not allowed. Evans Hall (165 Whitney Ave.), Zhang Aud. 2:30 PM China and the Chinese Diaspora Open House: English-Language Primary Resources at Yale Libraries. Six stations are set up to feature English-language manuscripts and archives, book, periodicals, and online resources related to China and the Chinese diaspora from the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Divinity Library, Manuscripts & Archives, Medical Historical Library and Sterling Memorial Library.

Sterling Memorial Library (120 High St.), Beinecke Temporary Classroom (First Floor).

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10 10:00 AM Fiesta Latina! Come to our annual celebration of Latin American cultures. Enjoy performances of traditional and contemporary Latin American music and dance, along with games, a fossil dig, live animals, crafts, face painting and other activities for the whole family. Free Admission. Peabody Museum of Natural History (170 Whitney Ave.).

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 2:00 PM Treasures from the Yale Film Archive: Princess Mononoke. Director Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 anime epic Princess Mononoke tells the story of the young warrior Ashitaka and the conflict between gods of the forest and the humans who consume its resources. One of the highest-grossing Japanese films of all time, the film also helped bring the work of Studio Ghibli to American audiences for the first time. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Aud.

To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.)

2-2400 (after 5 p.m.)

Mailing address Yale Daily News P.O. Box 209007 New Haven, CT 06520

Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Editor in Chief Stephanie Addenbrooke at (203) 432-2418.

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

To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite FOR JE) RELEASE OCTOBER 9, 2015

LUNA BELLER-TADIAR is a sophomore at Timothy Dwight College. Contact her at luna.beller-tadiar@yale.edu .

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Stirs 5 He wrote about “a midnight dreary” 8 Gobble (up) 13 Die, with “out” 14 Blog entry 15 Capital of India 16 Capital __ 17 Colorful fish 18 Took the wrong way?

19 Old Tokyo 20 Haul to the kitchen, as groceries 22 Word before or after dog 23 High-five relative 24 Poison remedy 26 Poison test site 27 Steamy stuff 30 Queen of the Goths in Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” 32 *Vandalized, in a way 33 Romantic activity 34 Words of wisdom 35 Country on the Strait of Hormuz 36 Ravel classic 39 *Head of the produce section?

43 Old-style warning 44 Rather little 45 Understand 46 Deli staple 49 Like Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony” 50 Horse show concern 52 They’re graphically represented three times in this grid ... and the answers to starred clues are the six longest common words than can be spelled using only them 53 2000 World Series venue 54 Yearbook, e.g.

56 Bakery buy 57 Newspaper fig.

10/9/15

By Bruce Haight

58 Little garden party?

59 Mazatlán Mrs. 60 End in __ 61 Facilitated 62 Suffer 63 Squealed DOWN 1 *Yielded 2 “Is it worth the risk?”

3 Knowledgeable about 4 Word before or after blue 5 Online annoyances 6 Oklahoma county in which a 2008 Pulitzer-winning drama is set 7 Work __ 8 Many AARP mems.

9 “Darn it!”

10 Ill-fated 1967 mission 11 Brush up on 12 *Place for oats 14 Member of the force 21 Darwin, for one 25 Fruit named for a Turkish town

Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU THE WALK UP SCIENCE HILL

3

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

28 14-Down’s need, at times 29 Legendary flier 31 “Morning Joe” airer 33 Like Congress 36 *Emotional burden 37 1992 Mamet play 38 Fast-growing U.S. ethnic group

10/9/15

40 Reigning emperor of Japan 41 Regan’s poisoner, in Shakespeare 42 *Wiped out 47 “__ luck!”

48 Asteroids maker 51 Subdue 53 “Buzz off!”

55 Went first

5

9 2 7 5 2 1

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

7

5 8 9 3 4 8 7 3

IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

QUICK HITS

MLB Rangers 5 Blue Jays 3

MLB Astros 5 Royals 2

EURO Ireland 1 Germany 0

EURO Portugal 1 Denmark 0

SPORTS DARTMOUTH COACH ON COLBERT THE REAL MVP Big Green football head coach Buddy Teevens appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Thursday, debuting a Dartmouth-engineered creation: a robotic tackling dummy. The Mobile Virtual Player, or MVP, reduces player-on-player tackling in practice.

y

YALE CREW GET YOUR OARS READY All three crew teams — the heavyweight, lightweight and women’s teams — open their fall seasons this weekend at the Head of the Housatonic. While all three teams’ primary seasons are in the spring, the Housatonic provides the first opportunity for competition.

NFL Colts 27 Texans 20

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports

“More than anything I am looking forward to playing alongside my brothers for one of my last few times.”

PABLO ESPINOLA ’16 MEN’S SOCCER

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Elis slated to face Big Green challenge

BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER The Yale football team travels to Hanover, New Hampshire this weekend to take on its toughest challenge of the 2015 season thus far: Dartmouth.

While the Elis’ prior opponents have a combined 4–9 record, the Big Green, like the Bulldogs, are a perfect 3–0. Dartmouth has outscored its opponents 121–37 over the past three weeks, in large part due to the production of dualthreat quarterback Dalyn Williams, the only fourth-year starting quarterback active in the Ivy League. “[Williams’] tape doesn’t lie,” linebacker and reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week Matthew Oplinger ’18 said.

“He’s an extremely good athlete who can also throw the football. When you come up against a threat like that, it’s always tough to contain. We’re going to have to work really hard this week to really discipline ourselves in order to stop him.”

Stopping the Big Green’s highpowered offense — or at least minimizing their damage — will be of utmost importance for the Bulldogs, who have lost the last three matchups to their conference foe. Last season’s 38–31 loss, one of two in the Elis’ 2014 campaign, ultimately proved to be the difference between second and third place in the Ivy League.

In that game, Dartmouth rebounded from a 24–14 halftime deficit to score its final touchdown with 2:20 on the clock. On

FOOTBALL

YALE VS. DARTMOUTH

BY THE NUMBERS OFFENSE DEFENSE POINTS PER GAME POINTS ALLOWED PER GAME

29.7 22.0

40.3 12.3 YARDS PER GAME YARDS ALLOWED PER GAME

457.7 334.7 429.3 314.0 JACOB MITCHELL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER SAMUEL WANG/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

Yale has won nine of its past 12 meetings with Dartmouth, but the Big Green has taken the last three games. a day in which the Big Green secondary blanketed his receivers, quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 threw three interceptions for the first and only time in his career.

“In the big picture, I think we ran out of time in that game,” head coach Tony Reno said. “In reality of what happened for

those 60 minutes, Dartmouth executed at the end of the game and we didn’t. They had a finishing drive to make it 38–31. We got the ball back and went down the field and we didn’t finish our drive.”

While Dartmouth’s veteran offense poses some challenges,

Yale’s defense has shown it can step up to difficult tasks. Against running quarterbacks such as Cornell’s Robert Somborn and Lehigh’s Nate Shafnisky, Yale’s speedy, rangy linebacking unit and aggressive defensive line have pushed back the line of scrimmage and consistently pressured

the mobile passers. As a group, the defense has exhibited tremendous growth since the opening weekend and should continue to improve, Oplinger said.

Reno echoed Oplinger, saying the team as a whole was not performing at the level it ought to be though he was pleased with the

improvements made, particularly from the second game of the season.

After racking up just 180 rushing yards in the first two games, the Elis finally rediscovered the ground game against Lehigh last SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 8

Yale looks to stay perfect

BY JONATHAN MARX STAFF REPORTER After starting its Ivy League season with three consecutive home victories, the Yale volleyball team looks to extend its perfect start to the conference season this weekend when it hits the road to face Dartmouth and Harvard.

VOLLEYBALL Yale (8–4, 3–0 Ivy) sits alone

atop the conference standings, just one match ahead of four teams, including the Big Green and Crimson. The upcoming weekend should be the first real test for the Bulldogs, whose first three league opponents currently hold a combined season record of 15–24.

“Harvard is the historical rival, and it’s always fun to be a part of that competitive tradition,” setter Kelly Johnson ’16 said. “It will be a great game because Harvard is a very good team, but we will be

focusing on beating Dartmouth first and then shift our focus to how to win at Harvard.”

Dartmouth (5–7, 2–1) comes into this weekend’s matchup as a surprise contender in the Ivy League. The Big Green finished sixth in the conference last season but pulled off a five-set upset at Harvard (6–7, 2–1) to open the Ivy slate before splitting with Penn and Princeton last weekend.

For the Crimson, the conference season-opening loss to Dartmouth was a major sur-

Season on the line at home

BY KEVIN BENDESKY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Coming off of four straight losses, the Yale men’s soccer team looks to keep its season hopes afloat in a home contest against Dartmouth on Saturday.

MEN’S SOCCER The Bulldogs (1–8–0, 0–1–0 Ivy) — who have been striving for an Ivy League title since the beginning of the season — have not yet lost these aspirations, despite a slow start to the 2015 season.

“We set a goal at the beginning of the season of winning an Ivy League championship,” forward

Avery Schwartz ’16 said. “The only way to do that is to play one game at a time.”

After finishing 1–13–3 last year, one of the toughest season results in the team’s long history, Eli players stressed that Saturday’s game represents a critical point in the season. With Dartmouth (5–3–1, 1–0–0) laying claim to the 2014 Ivy title and remaining one of the most talented teams in the conference this year, Yale’s second conference matchup, though by no means easy, will be an opportunity for the Bulldogs to prove their ability against top competition in the conference.

SEE MEN’S SOCCER PAGE 8

STAT OF THE DAY 9

prise. Last year, Harvard’s team swept the Big Green at home in three sets and also defeated Yale twice en route to a share of the Ivy crown with Yale.

This season’s Crimson team, though, does not resemble last fall’s powerhouse squad. Harvard has already exceeded its five losses from the 2014 season, and the team has struggled to replace the contributions of graduated middle blocker Caroline Walters, a three-time All-Ivy player.

Despite Harvard’s issues, Eli

players maintained that they expect a battle against their rival.

While Yale has left New Haven for two preseason tournaments this fall, its first Ivy League road trip — and especially a game in Cambridge, Massachusetts — will be a new experience for the freshman players.

“It’ll be fun to have a crowd away from home and to have them yelling at us and heckling at us,” outside hitter Kelley Wirth ’19 said. “I’m excited to be in that environment and to come out and

play our best, and hopefully come out with a win.”

From head coach Erin Appleman’s perspective, this weekend’s pair of games will not push the experienced Bulldog squad out of their comfort zone.

Appleman stressed the cumulative experiences of her upperclassmen, for whom away trips in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have become familiar.

The Bulldogs have won their SEE VOLLEYBALL PAGE 8

Dartmouth comes to town

BY NICOLE WELLS STAFF REPORTER This Saturday night, under the lights of Reese Stadium, the Yale women’s soccer team kicks off against Dartmouth.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Both of Yale’s soccer teams host Dartmouth on Saturday.

The Big Green (7–2–2, 0–1–1 Ivy) experienced its second loss of the season against Princeton in an overtime letdown last weekend. Meanwhile, the Elis (3–5–2, 0–2–0) are also coming off of a loss against the Crimson in a decisive 4–0 defeat — their secondstraight dropped decision. With another Ancient Eight game on tap this weekend, the Bulldogs look to get back in the groove in search of their first Ivy League win.

“Practice this week was very

goal-oriented and intense,” goalkeeper Rachel Ames ’16 said. “We focused on small tactical concepts and worked on playing for each other. Everyone was trying to make the player next to them better in order to improve as a whole.”

Yale has yet to score in either of its conference matchups thus far, having been outscored 7–0, the largest goal differential in the league.

Despite the lack of scoring, the Bulldogs’ leading scorers have still managed to make their presence felt. Forward Michelle Alozie ’19 and midfielder Sofia Griff ’19 have combined for eight shot attempts over the two Ivy matchups. The two freshmen are fourth and seventh, respectively, in the league for most points.

SEE WOMEN’S SOCCER PAGE 8

THE NUMBER OF GOALS SCORED BY THE YALE MEN’S SOCCER TEAM IN NINE GAMES THIS SEASON, SURPASSING THE TEAM’S TOTAL FROM ALL OF LAST YEAR. In 17 games last year, the Bulldogs found the back of the net just seven times.

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

BETWEEN JOBS Michelle Liu and Victor Wang investigate the career trajectories that characterize life after Yale. Page 3.

// EMILY HSEE & AMANDA MEI

FARMIN’

B4

SHOW & TELL

B5

D’OH!

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OAT TO JOY

WHAT’S IN A WORD?

BURN(S) BABY BURN(S)

Yale Farm has hops to harvest and fowl to feed.

Monica Wang explores.

Griffin Brown stops by City-Wide Open Studios’ opening exhibit, which asks Connecticut artists to consider the concept of “dwelling.”

What would a post-apocalyptic world obsessed with “The Simpsons” look like?

Andrew Ruys de Perez watches the madness unfold.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

KHAITAN

GARCIA-KENNEDY

WEEKEND VIEWS

WHAT MARIA KNOWS // BY IAN GARCIA-KENNEDY I first read Joan Didion’s 1970 novel “Play It as It Lays” in an airport. This is, perhaps, a fitting setting for a story about a main character ending one period of her life and beginning another.

Her name is Maria Wyeth, and she’s an actress from a hamlet in Nevada who now lives in L.A. with her ex-husband, a film director, with whom she remains entangled (more out of habit than affection). We follow her over the course of about a year, the time it takes for her to suffer a nervous breakdown that ultimately warrants institutionalization.

Maria lives in a world in which her value begins and ends with her attractiveness (she continues to diet throughout the novel, even at the height of her melancholy). At age 30, she is already being slotted into “mother” roles and television work while her husband is just hitting his peak. So is this a feminist novel? No. Maria’s angst does not seem to afflict other women in the novel. It’s not their problem; it’s hers.

So why is she so unhappy? The first time I read this novel, I replayed key passages over and over again. The minimalist prose rendered Maria so passive and so detached that I chalked up her existential horror to a character trait, a literary device.

At first read, the book is a master class in style over substance. The prose is sparse, entire chapters begin and end within a few sentences and white spaces seem to dominate entire pages. Didion describes abusive relationships and degrading encounters in such a cool, meticulously nonchalant voice that her book feels carved from ice.

So why does it hurt so much? Upon my second and third reads, I realized that the prose obscures Maria, possibly

in the same way that she obscures herself to others. Maria is, in fact, perpetually on the verge of tears — but Didion renders this so subtly that it is easy to miss. This is not a Bret Easton Ellis heroine, detached and jaded to the core, but a woman with such thin skin that a passing pool party conversation triggers emotional collapse.

On this second reading, I found myself skimming over entire pages … not out of boredom, but rather of a desire to block out the feelings on display. A chapter in which Maria visits her handicapped daughter in a care home felt almost too painful to read. Longing isn’t supposed to bruise this way on the page. Sadness is supposed to be aestheticized to the point of abstraction, not taken at face value. What am I, the reader, supposed to do with a protagonist who simply drowns in misery while I watch? There is no comeback, no revelation, just pain. Exactly as it feels in real life. Bald, wounding, an exposed nerve being smashed with a hammer.

The archetypical Hollywood characters — along with their bad films and large sunglasses — leave no lasting impression, and simply take up space in the world of the novel. Maria’s refusal to give them the answers they want, and oftentimes even to speak to them, are her acts of rebellion against their detachment. She refuses to live in their world, a place in which a film financier is a gangster, her ex flits off to Las Vegas to make some terrible movie while his institutionalized daughter languishes and Maria herself goes to work on a second-rate cop show while still bleeding from a botched abortion.

Maria is not detached. She would need to be detached to live in such a world.

And since she cannot detach and also cannot survive without doing so, Maria chooses to degenerate to a state of nothingness, becoming completely withdrawn by the novel’s close. The book may seem ice-cold, but we slowly realize that it is powered by Maria’s red-hot fury.

Maria’s tragic rebellion has haunted me since the first read. She refuses to leave my mind. Her curse is that she has seen her life’s emptiness and refuses to further engage with it; she “knows what ‘nothing’ means.” I remember reading those words for the first time in the airport, and suddenly feeling uncertain as to where I was heading. “Nothing” can be used to describe absence, or to describe something that seems increasingly vacant the longer you look at it. How much of my own life would fall into the “nothing” category? Would I describe my GCals or my science credit as “nothing?” What about the clubs I’m in, or my rushed dinners in the dining hall? In one sense, Maria’s story is a cautionary tale — but maybe what she knows is something we don’t.

Contact IAN GARCIA-KENNEDY at

//DELEINE LEE

ian.garcia-kennedy@yale.edu .

The Form // BY NITIKA KHAITAN

The Google Form is titled Daily Feedback. These are its sections: General, Internet, People, Academics, Projects and Lifestyle (Sex, Sleep & Food) Caveman Edition. “General” asks you to rate your day on a scale of one to ten, write a paragraph about what you’re grateful for and check some boxes on whether you’ve taken your pills and reviewed your to-do list. “Internet” asks how many article tabs remain unread, how many conversation tabs remain open and how many people on Facebook you’ve wished a happy birthday to.

In “People”, you rate your social life on a scale from hermit-like to extroverted, check boxes about responding to emails and writing follow-up messages to people you hung out with and tally the times you’ve been late and the times you’ve responded to people who asked for help. “Academics” has more checkboxes about whether you’ve done your readings, and “Projects” asks about the number of photographs you’ve taken, and the number of hours you’ve spent coding, writing, editing and reading psych papers. “Lifestyle (Sex, Sleep & Food) Caveman Edition” asks how many times you’ve masturbated, watched porn, had sex, helped H orgasm, napped, overslept, eaten, meditated, suffered anxiety attacks and watched Netflix.

My friend sent me the Form this summer (H is his girlfriend). He has programmed it to pop up in his Internet browser every night at 11:00, and he self-imposes a five-minute limit to complete it. I made a copy and changed it completely, renaming my version “Daily Portrait.” To a greater extent than his, my Form shows an obsession with remembering. What if I forget all about the poem I read today and how I scribbled in the margins while reading it that it has some of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever encountered?

I’m old enough, at 20, to be shocked by how much I’ve already forgotten. I don’t remember the plot line of Malory Towers, a television series that made going to boarding school a main, ultimately unsuccessful, childhood dream of mine. My Facebook newsfeed constantly throws up faces I never thought I’d forget, but did. I attended Mass recently with a friend, and every closing-of-the-eyes and Lord, hear our prayer brought back old feelings of annoyance — the anger towards my convent-school nuns that had defined

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so much of my time there, and that I hadn’t thought about in years till Mass a week ago.

And so, long-answer questions in my Form ask me to record the new people I meet, great things I read and ten “Daily Gratitudes” (which usually ends up being a list of things I did that day, gratitude-worthy or not).

The responses, Google tells me, are saved in a spreadsheet. I’ve never seen it, but I imagine I’ll open it years later, on one of those days when you call in sick because you don’t remember why you’re doing what you are. “I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be,” writes Joan Didion in On Keeping a Notebook, “Otherwise they turn up unannounced … at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” A decade from now, I’ll read how on Oct. 7 I went to a onenight-only photo show in a wooden garage, attended a pink-lit jazz concert in a dorm room and stayed up till 5 a.m. with a friend talking about the pressure of having a “Yale-worthy” career — and I’ll see whether I gave in and whether I found plenty more nights l i ke that.

The pres-

sure of having a “Yale-worthy” career is linked to guilt over the privilege of being here and a fear that everything I’m doing is selfish, unnecessary for any future efforts directed at things outside of me. This guilt leads to a neurotic need to “make the most” of Yale, and this fear adds to my obsession with “remembering” in the hope that, years later, I’ll be able to look at

things I’m doing now and reassure myself that they did indeed help me with unselfish goals.

The Form has more mundane uses too. Multiple-choice questions collect data on habits: which meals I ate, how many glasses of water I drank, and how much I slept. Checkbox questions serve as reminders, asking whether I exercised, called or texted home, well-wished my Facebook friends on their birthdays and looked at the news. The Form, I guess, is a concise statement of the things I value. Tracking its evolution reveals h ow t h ose

things change. Recently, for instance, I deleted questions on how many calories I ate because I realized I needed to have a healthier relationship with food.

One day in a class I took last year called Poetry and Faith, our professor asked how many of us prayed. I don’t, but I felt like raising my hand and mentioning the Google Form. We had discussed two purposes of prayer apart from communing with God: imposing a ritual and encouraging self-reflection. My Google Form does both.

Contact NITIKA KHAITAN at nitika.khaitan@yale.edu .

//LAURIE WANG

MASS INCARCERATION AND HEALING JUSTICES Anthony Hall // 4 p.m.

A discussion of the criminal justic system with Lewis Webb of the American Friends Service Committee’s Campaign to End the New Jim Crow.

WKND RECOMMENDS: The awkward gate between Vanderbilt and Bingham.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

CHOICES

// BY VICTOR WANG AND MICHELLE LIU

UNCERTAIN TIMES

WEEKEND CAREER

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Jessica Yuan ’15 had no idea what kind of salary to expect right out of college for a job in architecture. During her junior year, she thought she might earn $60,000 annually after leaving Yale. But when she finally did the research in the fall of her senior year, she learned that the starting salary for an entry-level architecture job is about half that. She was shocked.

“It’s really strange that we’re making major life decisions about the fields we’re going into without knowledge of the salaries [they entail],” Yuan said.

Yuan finds the conversation about money and salaries at Yale to be minimal at most. She attributes this to Yale students’ idealism — the faith that we will have freedom to do as we wish careerwise, and that we will gain a foothold in any field we enter.

Other students didn’t talk about their salaries until second semester senior year, she recalled, which is when the whispers began. To do otherwise would have been impolite, Yuan said. *** In recent months, national media has revived the age-old debate of college rankings. Publications from the Washington Post to the Hartford Business Journal have picked up on several newly released studies, this time backed by the quantitative evidence of alumni salaries. And if we take these reports at face value, Yale does not seem to be faring well.

In late August, the Washington Post ran an article on “[where] to go to college if you want the highest starting salary.” The article used a report from PayScale, which collected salary data from nearly 1.5 million employees with degrees from over 1,000 different American colleges. The result “isn’t kind to Ivy League schools,” the article concluded, noting that Yale alums rank 40th nationally, and third-to-last among Ivies.

A couple of weeks later, a different Washington Post article in September was kinder to Ivy League schools. Citing data released by the Department of Education, the article revealed that the median annual salary for an Ivy League graduate 10 years after college enrollment is twice that of the average college grad. Still, the Post noted that Yale ranks second-to-last among the Ivies. Yale’s 90th percentile lagged significantly behind that of Harvard — in other words, even Yale’s top earners are falling short.

Even in Connecticut, Yale seems to be merely on par with other schools. In a study released

this month, the Hartford Business Journal reported that the starting salaries of graduates from Fairfield University — a private school with an enrollment of about 5,000 — averages $50,100.

In comparison, Yale graduates earned $50,000. Other private schools in the state, such as Quinnipiac University and Trinity University, have comparable averages, at $49,500 and $47,800, respectively.

The common question here seems to be whether Yale, a prestigious and storied institution, is “worth” attending. And in terms of salary, recent studies suggest that it just might not be.

These studies and the media’s attention to graduates’ salaries raise several questions: Are Yalies actually doing worse than their peers financially after graduation? And — perhaps more importantly — should we judge life after Yale by how much we make? *** Upon closer investigation, the data upon which these articles are based do not encompass all Yale grads. Rather, the studies tend to focus on specific subsets of alumni.

The Department of Education College Scorecard data, for instance, looks specifically at students who were on federal financial aid, quantifying their earnings 10 years after college enrollment. While roughly half of Yale students were on financial aid in the 2009–10 academic year, only 10 percent received funds from the U.S. government to complete their education, according to the College Scorecard.

The PayScale study, on the other hand, reports only median income in two categories: that of alumni with zero to five years of experience, and that of alumni with 10 or more years of experience. According to alumni interviewed, this is misleading due to the number of Yalies who go to graduate school or switch between sectors during their first five years post-graduation.

Moreover, the Washington Post coverage of the study also takes graduate students into account.

Even when considering only undergraduate degree holders, PayScale ranks Yale (46th) not only behind Ivies like Brown (35th) and Cornell (32nd), but also behind public universities such as the Georgia Institute of Technology (22nd) and the University of California, Berkeley (18th).

Still, it seems an oversimplification to summarize the experiences of thousands of Yale grad-

uates in a single median income statistic. The numbers may indicate that we’re lagging behind, but the paths of recent graduates tell a more complex story. *** For the class of 2010 — whose salary data many of the studies focus on — the Great Recession loomed heavily over their career choices.

Jonathan Gordon ’10, an economics major, said he had considered entering the financial sector after spending two of his college summers interning in the field. Ultimately, Gordon chose to attend law school, and now practices law at a firm in New York City.

Analyzing salary data for those who have only recently graduated isn’t particularly fruitful, given the number of students who don’t make a living in graduate school, Gordon said. He added that entrepreneurs don’t earn much in their first few years either.

“There tends to be a lot of affluence as well as financial aid at Yale, so students can afford to go to grad schools or work on political campaigns to set [themselves] up in the long term,” Gordon said.

Gordon highlighted a campuswide focus on finance during his time at Yale, with firms heavily recruiting students for lucrative and prestigious positions. However, he noted that the financial crisis — which began in September 2007 — redirected many of his peers’ career paths, drawing them to less traditional fields. Aspiring businessmen became teachers; corporate hopefuls became civil servants.

According to a study conducted by the University’s Office of Institutional Research, employment in areas of business and finance dropped to 15 percent for the class of 2010, compared to 22 percent in 2000. The study also demonstrated Yalies’ growing interest in the education sector, as the number of students entering the field steadily rose from 4 percent in 1970 to 18 in 2010.

For Jason Acosta ’10, who had been considering working on the Hill as a Democrat, the 2010 midterm elections played an even bigger role than the financial crisis in determining his career path.

Following the elections, the Democratic Party lost many national and state seats, leading to a scarcity of job positions within the Party.

“Everyone was scrambling for jobs,” Acosta said. “The limited opportunities made me reassess what I wanted to do.”

Acosta took an offer to direct a volunteer project at the Hispanic Youth Institute despite the job’s relatively low salary. He said he made the decision because he thought the work would be rewarding, and he hoped to give back to his community. Nevertheless, he admits that there was an element of serendipity to his experience.

“Everything happened very quickly. I kind of just fell into it,” Acosta said.

Money wasn’t a major concern for Andy *, a 2010 graduate who majored in political science and now teaches at a private school in California.

PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY YOU CAN COME OUT OF YALE AND MAKE A LOT OF MONEY, OR SAVE THE WORLD. Although Andy originally planned to work on the policy side of education, a teaching assistant job he held as an undergraduate in the New Haven Public Schools District drew him to the classroom. He acknowledged the limitations of his lower salary, but stressed that he values more than what’s in his bank account.

In fact, when Andy moved to California, he chose the lowestpaying job offer out of those he received because the school’s values aligned with his own.

“Obviously, it would be nice to have more money, but the question is at what cost?” Andy said.

“Sometimes people don’t really take those other kinds of nonmonetary costs into account when making decisions.”

Still, like Gordon, Andy felt the constraints of the financial crisis on his job search. He had considered law school as an undergraduate, but abandoned the notion after the recession. Other students he knew avoided professional schooling, which they associated with accruing debt.

While the 2008 recession made some ’10 graduates re-evaluate the tried and true route into the financial industry, the class of 2010 also defined broader trends in graduates’ post-college plans.

Seventy-five percent of the class entered the workforce directly — a historic high at the time, while only 21 percent attended graduate or professional school right SEE MONEY PAGE 8

//SAM LAING & JACOB MIDDLEKAUFF

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BEAUTY IN THE PURGATORY OF GENDER LC 209 // 4:30 p.m.

Hear from Riva Lehrer, an artist who focuses on disability and the sociallychallenged body.

WKND RECOMMENDS: The tunnel from Silliman to Commons.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND FARM

HANDS

THE YALE FARM: FOOD AND THOUGHT // BY MONICA WANG

This Wednesday morning, instead of typing away at my computer or staying far too long in bed, I found myself sauntering up Prospect Street in search of an unknown destination: 345 Edwards St. More than a short stroll away from the central campus, the journey included surmounting the formidable Science Hill. But the fall weather was charming, harvest season at its finest with sunlight filtering through the leaves. As I slowly left the noisy streets and crowds of students hurrying across “downtown” Yale, I began to enter another world — papers and midterms disappeared, and I felt strangely grounded. Venturing through the gates of the Yale Farm, my feet quite literally left the concrete sidewalk and became firmly planted in the dark, fertile soil.

Part of the Yale Sustainable Food Program, the Yale Farm is a one-acre space operated by Jeremy Oldfield, YSFP’s manager of field academics, as well as 35 Yale student workers, which include farm managers and senior advisers. YSFP’s director Mark Bomford and other staff members also serve as part of the Farm’s greater support system. The main source of laborers and patrons, however, comes from its sizable group of volunteers, which can number up to 75 on a pleasant Friday afternoon. After all, who could possibly resist the freshly baked hearth oven pizzas that are one of the Farm’s trademark attractions?

Many students associate the Farm with its delicious pizza, but they are less likely to know that the land is worked 12 months a year, yielding fresh produce that is sold at the Wooster Square farmer’s market every Saturday. Even during the summer, Lazarus summer interns work to ensure that the earth is alive and cultivated.

No matter what time of the year, you will always find activity on the Farm; managers and volunteers work together to weed, plant, harvest and prepare the fields for new crops as the seasons come and go.

Snuggled into a beautiful corner of campus, the Yale Farm occupies a landscape distinct from the rest of Yale’s otherwise urban setting.

And there, people seem to be concerned with an entirely distinct

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task: food.

While many of us don’t usually give second thoughts to the food we eat in dining halls and restaurants, the processes and systems behind food are some of the most important concepts on the Yale Farm. The production, consumption and dissemination of food form an ecological and sociological cycle of which the day-to-day cooked meals we consume constitute only a small part. Indeed, the Yale Farm is a practical space that puts ideas into action and concepts into practice. But to stop at the physical work would be to take a limited perspective; for those who work on and love the Yale Farm, the space means so much more.

THE PHYSICAL FARM “Farms are inherently problemrich environments,” Jacqueline Munno, YSFP’s programs manager for professional experience, told me on Wednesday morning.

“It’s amazing to see how different students solve these problems.”

Munno added that physical laws are often played out on the Farm’s acreage as students experience the hands-on endeavors of planting, harvesting and making food. Munno herself learned how to use a spigot for the first time on the Farm, a lesson she said cannot be replicated in the classroom.

“As a physical space, the Farm is a place where students come to learn about farming and agricultural via performing tasks and actually seeing what there is to harvest and plant,” Claire Chang ’18, one of the eight student farm managers this year, said. Working the land is, after all, an essential task on any farm.

Oldfield, the Farm’s overseeing manager, mentioned that staple crops grown year-round include mustard greens, salad mixes and an assortment of roots. The Farm’s beets, radishes and turnips are often best-sellers at farmers’ markets, Oldfield said while guiding me through rows of crops.

Michael Leibwohl ’17, another student farm manager, told me that in addition to more conventional crops that can be found on most farms, Yale Farmers grow a wide selection of plants with vari-

ous lesser-known uses, such as the Connecticut tobacco plant which the Farm uses as a natural pesticide.

AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM Rather than the sole production of crops, the Farm mainly serves an educational purpose.

“We present the Farm as one of the three major areas of the YSFP in creating food leaders in the classroom and around the world,” Oldfield said. “[The Farm] is a locus for tasks, specific skillbuilding, leadership experience and engagement with ecology as well as sociology.”

An American Studies major in college, Oldfield himself first became interested in agricultural labor relations after reading John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” His academic pursuits soon led him to investigate and experience life on an actual farm, where he fell in love with farming and decided to pursue it as a career. Still, it was literature that got him into food, Oldfield said, and the conceptual aspect of farming never quite left Oldfield’s vision.

Oldfield told me proudly that many Yale professors bring their classes to the Yale Farm, including Maria Trumpler’s ’92 “Women, Food and Culture” and Bella Grigoryan’s “Masterpieces of Russian Literature I.” Trumpler’s class used wheat from the Yale Farm to bake proto-bread in the Farm’s oven according to flatbread recipes from the Beinecke, while the space served as a real-life demonstration of what Russian farms during the era of Anna Karenina might have looked like to Grigoryan’s Russian literature class.

Engineers from Yale’s CEID, Oldfield added, often envision ways to design more effective agricultural practices with the Yale Farm in mind.

“I always find it delightful to see Yale College freshmen trying to think like chickens to see how [the Farm’s ten hens] can be fed most efficiently and effectively without attracting other urban rodents,” Oldfield said.

Participation in the Farm is not limited to Yale affiliates. During

OKTOBERFEST

AEPi House // 5 p.m.

Eat some brats and get in touch with your inner beer-varian.

my informal farm tour, children from a nearby elementary school leapt across the fields as part of the Seed to Salad program, which brings New Haven public school second-graders to the Farm. Students in the program plant the seeds for their own salads, which they eventually harvest and eat, participating in a complete planting cycle.

In addition to the Farm’s academic functions, farm managers and the YSFP team also plan speaker events and hands-on workshops that teach skills ranging from bread-baking to pickling.

In fact, this afternoon, the Farm will hold an event called “Boola Brewla,” where student Jake Reznick SOM ’18 will lead attendees in beer-brewing, using hops grown on the Yale Farm as the raw ingredients.

YSFP’s Lazarus Fellow in Food and Agriculture Bella Napier ’14 is also organizing talks and teas related to the Farm this fall in a series called “Chewing the Fat — Yale Events on Food, Agriculture and the Environment.” Executive Chef of Zinc Restaurant Denise Appel recently gave a lesson in menu construction, and Dina Brewster ‘98 is scheduled to speak about her experience as a woman running a family farm.

Master’s teas, it seems, are not the only venues on campus drawing remarkable individuals to share their stories at Yale.

Commenting on the nature of the Farm as an outdoors classroom, Munno said, “The bigger thought on the Farm is that whoever passes through our gates will go on to be a big system thinker who is able to support the agricultural landscape of this country.”

THE JOURNEY TO FOOD All roads lead to food — or at least it seems so among Yale Farmers and YSFP enthusiasts. The journey to food, however, has been radically different for each individual, and every person’s story starts differently. Yet somehow their voyages have converged to a single location: the Yale Farm’s one-acre space, where they have gathered together to toil in the earth.

Jacob Wolf-Sorokin ’16, one of

the Farm’s senior advisers and an EP&E major, began with a simple interest in eating but eventually discovered an intriguing relationship between food and his academic interests.

“I am fascinated by the relationship between global systems and the way in which an individual lives his or her life, and I’ve been struck by how many systems I bite into when I eat, especially after my experiences on the Farm,” WolfSorokin said. “The Farm is the manifestation of one approach to agriculture, and it’s been a helpful tool in thinking about different resource systems.”

For Napier, the inspiration came from her sojourn in Paris during a study abroad session. Immersed within a dynamic city in a completely different country, Napier was cooking for herself when she became overwhelmed by the realization of just how important food was to different cultures.

Also an EP&E major, Napier shifted course after she returned from Paris, resolving to focus her studies on business ethics and corporate responsibility in the food industry.

“I realized I could spend my entire life doing this,” Napier said — and she certainly is right now.

Munno, who sees farmers as her ultimate heroes, has dedicated her career to “supporting the people who feed us.” But there’s something extra — it seems like Munno’s journey led to something more than just food. With a beautiful ring on her finger and an equally beautiful smile on her face, Munno told me that she has recently married a farmer.

Perhaps it is the no-closedgates policy, or perhaps it is the community of diverse thinkers that have gathered on its premises, but the Yale Farm is something different. Every time student farm manager Justin Wang ’17 is on the Farm, for example, he experiences a different rhythm and is simply reminded of how alive he is.

“The farm feels magical,” Wang said.

Boola Brewla is on today for any interested takers. Long live Yale ale!

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

WKND RECOMMENDS: Grove Street Cemetery.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

TWIN PEAKS, FIRST AMONG EQUALS // BY DAVID WHIPPLE

// DAVID WHIPPLE

All rock bands sound the same live.

Onstage, studio nuances are stripped away, amplifiers are cranked to 11 and the resulting squall reveals rock ’n’ roll’s essential similarity: three chords and the truth, maaaan. The trick, then, is picking the right three chords — writing songs that retain their identity even when reduced to bare essentials.

Good rock bands know this, and that knowledge was on full, raucous display during last Saturday night’s triple bill of Wavves, Twin Peaks and Steep Leans at the College Street Music Hall. What the show lacked in subtlety, it made up for in unadulterated, fuck-all spirit — a trade-off I’m happy to accept.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a band have as much fun onstage as Twin Peaks did Saturday night. Having spent the summer soaking in the layered guitar parts and surprisingly tender harmonies of “Wild Onion,” the Chicago band’s most recent album, I entered the theater hoping to be transported back to July. So I was at first disappointed to find that the band had apparently neglected to hire a sound engineer given the undifferentiated wall of noise emanating from the stage. “Fuck the vocals!” yelled singer-guitarist Cadien Lake James at one point, finally giving up after struggling all night to make his voice heard. But my initial annoyance gave way quickly when faced with the sheer joy Twin Peaks brought to their performance.

Wearing goofy, trash-‘stached smiles and looking no older than high school kids, the band tore through an

energetic set that paired old favorites (“Boomer”) with choice cuts from “Wild Onion” (“Makin’ Breakfast,” “Flavor”). James, tongue hanging out of his mouth and shaggy hair flying, headbanged with such force that I worried he might get whiplash. Drummer Connor Brodner, whose hulking figure made his drum set look like a toy from FisherPrice, beat the living shit out of his kit until he finally broke his ride cymbal and had to call a time out, at which point the rest of the band launched into a spontaneous cover of “Lean On Me,” with guitarist Clay Frankel instructing the audience to “check out this fuckin’ solo.” We happily complied.

Despite the solo, “Lean On Me” was a throwaway — something that couldn’t be said about the rest of Twin Peaks’ performance. Sure, it was sloppy, and sure, the guitars didn’t sound like they do on record. But it didn’t take me long to stop caring because whatever the shortfalls of their live show, Twin Peaks know how to pick their three chords.

Their music is unassuming and catchy, vaguely nostalgic but at the same time a great day-drinking soundtrack, and the band’s easygoing but hard-rocking attitude is just as endearing live as it is on record.

“Nothing lasts forever!” Frankel (and the entire audience) howled during “Making Breakfast” — “but don’t let it get you down!” Twin Peaks are hardly the first indie rockers to pair wistful lyrics with shimmery guitars (see Estate, Real, Demarco, Mac and Pavement), but to craft something new from

such a well-worn trope requires talented musicians who don’t take themselves too seriously. And judging by the tongue-in-cheek video for “Making Breakfast” in which Frankel dances and bobs his head while grilling coffee, smoking cigarettes and singing the song’s melancholic lyrics, Twin Peaks seem to fit the description.

Compared to Twin Peaks, headlining act Wavves seemed like consummate professionals, which says something, given that frontman Nathan Williams claims the four-piece band can go through 100 beers and two bottles of Jameson in an evening. Playing one of their last shows before the Tuesday release of their fifth album, “V,” the San Diego beach-punks (Californian culture is so weird) pummeled the frantically moshing audience with what to me sounded like one extremely long but enjoyable Phrygianmodal song (Phrygian is Greek for “that minor-key sound that Wavves uses”).

Given that it’s already raw and guitarheavy, Wavves’ music translates to the stage with ease. And Williams’ crew seems to purposefully streamline their sound when playing live, toning down the feedback and making for an almost fratty, Green Day-esque pop-punk experience: The merch booth was selling Wavves snapbacks and football jerseys, which attendees wore without a trace of irony.

Most of the seething mosh pit masses would probably take offense at my comparing Wavves to an act as gauche as Green Day, but I mean it as

a compliment. Wavves’ hook-laden set, highlighted by “King of the Beach” and “Demon to Lean On,” was accessible even to a casual fan like me — the measure of a good rock show. And Saturday night was a Rock Show in the purest sense. Too beery and satisfying for a microgenre, the music of Steep Leans, Twin Peaks and Wavves can only be called rock. None of the three bands displayed a hint of pretense or angst; none seemed to care much for stage gimmicks or production value.

That spirit found favor with the audience, who by halfway through Twin Peaks’ set had begun hoisting crowd surfers towards the stage, where they were invariably rebuffed by security guards. But the show’s defining rock ’n’ roll moment wasn’t thanks to the crowd. It came courtesy of Steep Leans’ guitarist who wandered pissdrunk onto the stage towards the end of Twin Peaks’ performance and proceeded to dive into the audience, forcing a security guard to wade in after him. For me, that moment captured the essence of Saturday’s show, and it was appropriate that it came during Twin Peaks’ set. Wavves were the headliner, established but for that reason less exciting; Twin Peaks were the upand-comers, young and unpredictable, capable of brilliance or self-destruction but sure to bring frantic energy to either. On Saturday night, they chose the former.

Contact DAVID WHIPPLE at david.whipple@yale.edu .

Home is Where the Art Is // BY GRIFFIN BROWN

Ascribing the name “dwelling” to a living space makes for a decidedly active conception of home. We can return to a house after a long day and be content to veg out on the couch; it is a place in which we have the right to rest and indolence. A dwelling, on the other hand, implies something decisive. We choose to pause here and reflect, and while the actual act of resting doesn’t change much wherever it takes place, the title of dwelling gives it a different symbolism. That name triggers something more than a feeling of comfort or security — it inspires us to contemplate the invaluable time that we spend in whatever space we consider our own.

Those were my thoughts when I arrived at Artspace yesterday afternoon and encountered the word in thick purple script in the window. This week marks the kickoff of Artspace’s CityWide Open Studios festival, which in its 18-year existence has devoted itself to bringing together passionate artists from around Connecticut to showcase and discuss their work. This weekend, City-Wide Open Studios 2015 will extend beyond Artspace and into Greater New Haven. Tonight, a house party initiates a weekend-long exhibition of pieces that focus on the 21st

FRI D AY OCTOBER

9

century lifestyle. In two weekends, Erector Square will open its many private studios for public viewing. However, the festival formally began last weekend, when the gallery unveiled their current exhibition: a comprehensive overview of this year’s participating artists. For the festival, Artspace asked the 383 participating artists to consider the multifaceted idea of dwelling. So what I saw — and what will be on view at Artspace for the remainder of the festival, which runs into the middle of November — was a collective meditation on the broad topics of place and home.

The work in this exhibition is organized based on the location of later exhibitions, not by style. Due to this structure and the understandable heterogeneity of the material, the aesthetic experience, although intriguing, is a bit overwhelming. Paintings with strong Impressionist influence hang mere inches away from collages that mix newspaper, cardboard, flowers and even, in Jessica Hart’s “Prescription” (number 91), pills. Painful, expressive photography, like Nicholas Abriola’s “Coalescence II” (number 1) and Anastasia Fasnakis’s “Lady of the Lake” (number 42), shares square feet

YALE CONCERT BAND SEASON OPENER

with a piece that resembles a postapocalyptic diorama. The incongruities that the exhibition puts forth are either arbitrary or incredibly thought provoking — perhaps both at the same time.

On one hand, it was difficult for me to focus on one piece for an extended period of time, which I think contributed to my sense of uneasiness in the exhibit. Conversely, the stark changes in tone — like the decision to put Laura Marsh’s Koonsian homage, “Pool toy with big lips and mouth” (number 208), below a painting of two kittens emblazoned with the words “cat noir” — also seem to intimate feelings of displacement, from one’s surroundings or one’s expectations. If one of the goals for this year’s festival is, in director Helen Kauder’s words, to stimulate discussion of the “many meanings of dwelling,” then this first stage has succeeded in doing just that.

But my sensory overload aside, I was truly enthralled by three works in particular. The first, a graphite drawing

by Gretchen Hugan entitled “Haiti,” depicts a young boy with a captivating gaze. He looks right at the observer with large, dark eyes and a closed mouth that betrays a tension between fear and confidence. In light of this

Contact GRIFFIN BROWN at griffin.brown@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Woolsey Hall // 7:30 p.m.

Allonds danser, dear reader, in les fammes d’enfer.

year’s theme, one cannot help but wonder what home he returns to. Next is Carla Lockwood’s “Bedroom,” which occupies the largest area in the entire exhibit. It’s located behind a set of curtains in the back of the gallery, and consists of a series of black, inverted conetype structures spread out in a circle.

The room is dark except for some electric candles that dangle from the ceiling, which allow the viewer to focus on the sounds that the strange structures emit. The space is filled with what sounded like excerpts from ’80s tunes, suggesting the comfort of late nights alone (or with loved ones), listening to music in the home’s embrace.

Finally, Jean Scott’s “Eviction Notice” is arguably the most provocative piece of the exhibit. A simple piece of 8 ½ by 11-inch paper, it details the artist’s struggles to have their art included in CWOS itself, namely that negligent bureaucracy did not come through with promised funding. The notice’s final lines, seemingly addressed to the viewing public, ask an incisive question: “How many mistakes away are you from homelessness?”

The Evans Cafe.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND MORPH

PAGE B7

THING President Peter Salovey

WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS X WITH Y?

Sasha Pup

The Entire Heavyweight Crew Team

Former YCC Pres. Michael Herbert

A Turtle

EIC Stephanie Addenbrooke

Donald Trump

Shelly Kagan

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Skull and Bones

President Peter Salovey

Sasha Pup

The Entire Heavyweight Crew Team

// BY WKND

A Turtle

Former YCC Pres. Michael Herbert You think WKND jokes.

But WKND does not joke, ever.

Over the past few days, WKND has been positively aquiver with the ecstasy of scientific inquiry. Using various irreproducible methods and dubious statistical wranglings (P=0.00000001), we carried out pseudo-Mendelian genetic combinations of our favorite figures from campus and beyond, just to see what would happen. Apparently there are things like “ethics” and the “Belmont Report,” but WKND claims ignorance of such things. “Onward to the edge of science!” we cheered heartily, spilling President Salovey’s DNA onto our mac and cheese. And now we present to you, dear reader, our findings. (This report has been reluctantly peerreviewed by the Copy Desk.)

Donald Trump

Editor in Chief Stephanie Addenbrooke

Shelly Kagan

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Skull and Bones

FRI D AY OCTOBER

9

JE HIGH SCHOOL SCREWSICAL JE Great Hall // 10:30 p.m.

This could be the start of something new — the cool kids will be in McClellan A32 PG-ing beforehand.

WKND RECOMMENDS:

SATURDAY OCTOBER

Your roommate’s bed.

10

CONCERT AT 216

216 Dwight St. // 7 p.m.

Featuring Sister Helen, Castle Danger, Tundrastomper and Dogs on Sunday.

Everyone hipper than WKND is going.

WKND RECOMMENDS: The greenhouse at Edgewood Park.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND CAREER

CHOICES

MONEY TALKS // BY VICTOR WANG AND MICHELLE LIU

2.

Consulting

Ed u

nce

ca

Fina

1.

3. tio

n

2015

Work after graduation...

Non-profit NGO Public entity

Tech

4.

30% Health

5.

MONEY FROM PAGE 3 after Yale.

“There was this mentality at the time: ‘There must be lots of other people out there in worse condition than we are. At least we’ve gone to this great school with great connections. If there are jobs out there we’ll probably get them,’” Andy said. “I definitely heard a lot of people saying things like that.” *** “At our fifth-year reunion last spring, only one person I talked to was still doing the job he had started out at,” Austin Anderson ’10 said. “And he just quit recently.”

Anderson added that graduates expect to explore a range of different pursuits, which makes it easier for them to justify short-term career choices. This trend among millennials is not Yale-specific either. In 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the average worker stayed at a job for 4.4 years, while a survey by Future Workplace found that 91 percent of people born between 1977 and 1997 anticipated staying at their job for three years or less, causing Forbes Magazine to declare job-hopping the “new normal” for millennials.

This culture of career fluidity also highlights a struggle between practical constraints and ideological pursuits. “People always say you can come out of Yale and make a lot of money, or save the world,” Anderson said.

Other alums interviewed generally agreed. They said many of their friends worked for a couple of years at large firms both to repay student loans and to take

advantage of training resources in the private sector. Many then went on to join startups, nonprofit organizations and the education sector. However, some graduates also went in the opposite direction, moving from programs such as Teach For America to law firms, Gordon observed.

Balancing money and meaningful work also plays into graduates’ decisions to enroll in graduate and professional school.

Anderson, who now attends Harvard Law School, noted that its generous financial aid will allow him to work in the public sector afterwards without the full burden of debt. Still, even for someone who seems to have found that balance, Anderson admitted that he struggles to reconcile financial success and worthwhile endeavors.

“There is a definitely a tension — this is a choice you are constantly asked to make,” he said. “You can make it during your junior year when you go to a McKinsey information session, or five years after you graduate.”

Entering a market still reeling from the financial crisis, the class of 2010 was forced to consider opportunities beyond well-worn career paths. And five years later, they continue to define a generation in flux. *** Over the last five years, unemployment has dropped closer and closer to pre-recession rates as the U.S. economy recovers. But for Yale’s most recent graduates — the class of 2015 — the same concerns remain: How does one find a job that both pays and fulfills? Are finance and consulting worth it or not? And what about

SATURDAY OCTOBER

10

grad school?

Despite the nationwide economic upturn, money remains central to these questions. The Department of Education’s assessment focused on graduates who received federal financial aid, which naturally raises the question of whether students on aid place a different value on financial success.

Austin Long ’15, currently a Yale-China Fellow teaching English in Hong Kong, said that students he knew who were on financial aid certainly took salary into consideration when pursuing careers post-graduation. But these students didn’t necessarily jump for the highest-paying jobs, nor opt for consulting — instead, they chose to balance personal financial stability with community-oriented work.

“I want to be rich just like most people, but that desire to be rich is balanced by [a desire to] make a meaningful impact with all these privileges and benefits that I have accrued as result of my education and Yale degree,” Long said. “The most important thing for me is to give back because I wouldn’t have gotten here today without the help of other people.”

Shibao Pek ’15 said that, ultimately, being on financial aid has only a secondary impact on how students choose careers.

Whether one prioritizes earnings or career satisfaction is determined more by the personality of the individual student, he said.

According to Erica Leh ’15, while students on aid think about money differently when making such decisions, more affluent students have no right to judge the jobs chosen by others. She cited a trend of students “occupying,” or protesting, recruiting

KILL!

WHC // 7 p.m.

//AMANDA MEI

sessions in order to prevent others from entering finance.

“I know some Yalies who entered the finance sector from incredibly well-off backgrounds, and some who came from poverty, so I think the idea of lumping everyone into a group of ‘sell outs’ is misguided,” Leh said.

Like the class of 2010, the most recent graduates seem aware that what they do in their first few years out of college might not define the trajectory of the rest of their careers.

The Office of Career Strategy’s preliminary report for the class of 2015 highlights that financial services, consulting, education, technology and healthcare/medical/pharmaceutical are the top five industries that these graduates have entered. And 30 percent of students who entered the workforce after graduating this May began at some kind of nonprofit, NGO or government or other public entity.

However, some are skeptical of whether these sectors will remain the most popular options in the long run. Citing the prevalence of two-year contracts among companies in finance or consulting, Pek believes that in the vast majority of cases, graduates who go into these industries don’t plan to stick around for the long haul. Though education also features heavily in the industries that 2015 grads go into, Pek isn’t particularly optimistic about its long-term retention of graduates either.

“Regarding [Teach For America] and other short-term education contracts, basically everyone I know is doing it as a stepping stone to something else,” Pek said. “Trust me, I’m in this industry myself.”

Although ’15 Yalies seem to express many of the same financial constraints and uncertainties as their predecessors, they also face a different challenge — they have entered a market in which the technology sector is taking an increasing share of highpaying jobs. These range from cushy startup gigs to positions at industry giants like Microsoft and Google, both of which were among top employers for the class of 2014. According to OCS data, the computer science and technology industry has ranked in the top five industries graduates have entered for the past three years.

In a survey conducted by the News, approximately one-third of 2015 grads who reported making $90,000 or above annually majored in computer science at Yale.

Such a growing focus on tech after graduation led Pek to observe that “tech is the new finance/consulting, and the kids who are willing to ‘sell out’ are very much aware of this.”

Yuan added that while finance and consulting are often perceived as “sell-out” industries, tech has been relatively spared from the label so far.

Money evidently matters to some extent for the class of 2015, regardless of where they are working or what they are doing.

Still, alumni from the classes of 2010 and 2015 certainly don’t think that median income statistics can adequately describe how Ivy League schools match up with each other. Many don’t believe, for instance, that the Washington Post article which ranks Yale second-to-last income-wise in the Ivies necessarily indicates that Yalies are more dedicated to service or education, or more averse

to finance.

“Let’s not kid ourselves into saying that our median salaries are $10,000 less because we’re somehow higher-minded than Harvard grads,” Robert Peck ’15 said. *** Yuan, who now works at a local architecture firm in New Haven, said that what hinders conversations about money and how much of it we make after Yale is often the fear of appearing petty or greedy or mean.

But what these conversations — which Yuan and other alumni agree don’t occur nearly enough — reveal isn’t simply just how much one graduate makes in comparison to another, or who decided to go into banking. “[They’re] not supposed to draw you into the mindset of every man for himself,” Yuan said.

Instead, talking about how we’re going to make a living after Yale means that we can broach related topics of financial aid and class in voices louder than a whisper; we can address the social pressures and expectations that accompany “selling out.” We can question whether going into finance or consulting necessarily has to mean “selling out” at all.

And we can afford to be more transparent about what matters to us not only in making a living after graduation, but also in making a life. *Name has been changed to protect privacy.

Contact VICTOR WANG at victor.wang@yale.edu and MICHELLE LIU at michelle.liu@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

WATCH! Knit New Haven.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND GIRL

PAGE B9

POWER

DEBORAH BERKE REBUILDS // BY ALICE ZHAO

It’s 1968 in New York City, and Deborah Berke is 14 years old. She walks around the streets at night with her friend, and they look at buildings. They look at buildings and try to figure them out.

“The decision was long ago,” Berke says today, in 2015, from her office at Deborah Berke & Partners, a top architecture firm in Manhattan. “That’s when I decided I wanted to be an architect.”

In 1982, at the age of 28, Berke founded her own firm and remained its sole leader for 20 years. In 1987, she started teaching at the Yale School of Architecture, one of the most prestigious architecture schools in the nation. And, now, in 2015, she has just made history.

When previous School of Architecture Dean Robert Stern announced in 2013 that he was stepping down, the hunt for a replacement began immediately.

A search committee, composed of selected School of Architecture faculty members and Provost Benjamin Polak, was tasked with finding the new dean. For the last two years, they passed around names and reviewed potential candidates amid great anticipation and speculation within Yale’s architecture community.

And finally, just two weeks ago, President Peter Salovey announced the news: Berke will become the next dean of the School of Architecture. She will be the first female dean in the school’s 100-year history.

Stern said he felt confident in Berke as a successor. Reflecting on his two-decade tenure, he described how the school’s character has evolved.

“Berke is in that character,” Stern said. “She’ll build upon what I’ve accomplished at the school and take it to new areas.

She’ll bring new energy.” *** For some architecture students, the change alone is enough.

“Beyond a doubt, Dean Stern has been an excellent dean,” Ioanna Angelidou GRD ’18 said.

“But the 18 years of his deanship is a considerably long period, and the time is just right for a change of guard.”

For other students, Berke’s appointment is nothing less than a watershed. Positioning a woman as the head of a top American architecture school — in a field where women comprise only 18 percent of membership in The American Institute of Architects — feels, for many, like a milestone.

Female students, in particular, welcome Berke into the long line of leaders in their school’s history. Cathryn Garcia-Menocal ARC ’17, a member of Equality in Design, a student organization dedicated to addressing minority issues in architecture, pointed out that Berke founded her firm by herself — a rare occurrence in the field. Garcia-Menocal noted that significant women in architecture are typically part of a husband-wife team or a partnership.

“The visibility alone is inspiring,” Garcia-Menocal said. “It’s important for female students to see that there are ways to succeed in architecture that are not exclusively paternalistic.”

Jacqueline Hall ARC ’17, who is also a member of Equality in Design, agreed. Berke, she said, will serve as a role model whom many young female architects can relate to and whose accomplishments they aspire to achieve.

But students are not the only ones affected by Berke’s appointment. Peggy Deamer, a professor and the assistant dean at the School of Architecture, said architects have always accepted a male-dominated field as the status quo. She hopes that Ber-

SUNDAY OCTOBER

11

ke’s deanship will initiate a longoverdue shift in attitude.

“There are many subtle ways in which women in architecture, primarily students, feel disenfranchised,” Deamer said.

She noted that the school has few female lecturers, faculty members or critics, and few women guests featured in lecture series or end-of-semester reviews. Deamer said that Berke is aware of these gender disparities and will work to improve the culture.

Beyond the issue of gender balance, many students also expressed concern about their school’s ideological diversity.

Maggie Tsang ARC ’17 highlighted the school’s relative conservatism. Tsang said the school largely focuses on “traditional” practices such as client-driven building, as opposed to environmentally or socially conscious work.

“I would like to see the school expand on its focus, encourage more research initiatives, broaden its definition of architecture and take on a more global, international perspective,” Tsang said.

Angelidou also criticized the lack of internationalism at the school, especially in its curriculum. While she acknowledged that the school has many visiting professors, she was unsatisfied with what she called the school’s narrow current focus.

Angelidou noted that many significant institutions and thinkers exist outside of the American East Coast corridor and the New York-Europe axis, where she said the curriculum is focused. Ignoring architectural developments in the rest of the world, Angelidou said, is “a lost opportunity.”

Berke is conscious of these concerns, and cited the need to diversify the curriculum as one of her top priorities as dean. She said that underrepresentation in architecture, both in terms of curriculum and student composition, extends beyond issues of gender.

“There is a broader issue of which [underrepresentation] is a part,” she said. “The profile of the architecture profession is not a profile of the broader population of the country.” *** The leadership experience Berke has gained at the helm of her firm equips her well for deanship, according to many of her firm’s partners. One such partner, Maitland Jones, who helped design the School of Art and formerly taught at the School of Architecture, highlighted Berke’s impressive ability to collaborate.

While Jones said Berke is the firm’s “leading aesthetic authority,” he also called her a superb delegator who grants a sense of autonomy to her employees.

Marc Leff, another partner at the firm, commented on Berke’s passion for undertaking new projects and helping throughout the design process, even though her position allows her to simply dictate from the sidelines. He emphasized that a collaborative spirit suffuses each of the firm’s projects.

This type of inclusive attitude will likely provide a breath of fresh air in the School of Architecture’s administration. Deamer suggested that while the former need to establish the school’s reputation made this tight bureaucratic approach necessary, a more open policy might better serve the now-renowned school today.

In particular, Deamer mentioned that the faculty seeks greater support for their individual research. She believes that increased communication between administrators and faculty members would help to

//COURTESY OF DEBORAH BERKE

address this concern.

Students and faculty members at the school agreed that Berke’s personal qualities stand out even more than her experience and leadership skills.

Garcia-Menocal praised Berke’s frankness, as well as her humility. She noted in particular Berke’s genuine engagement and refusal to participate in a “theater of the ego” during end-ofsemester panel reviews of student work.

Deamer said she admires Berke’s unflinching honesty, coupled with her capacity for empathy.

“She is incredibly straightforward,” Deamer said. “But she’s also sensitive. She’s empathetic, so that straightforwardness doesn’t come with brutality; it just comes with being honest.

I think that means you can trust what she has to say.” *** For some students, an overarching feeling of restriction plagues the School of Architecture. Caroline Acheatel ARC ’17 said a lack of individuality and freedom bothers her most about her program. She said these constraints reflect the lack of power student opinion has in administrative affairs.

“There needs to be more agency in the first-year curricu-

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF CIRCLES Davies Auditorium // 10:30 a.m.

Drinking circles, sewing circles, sharing circles — WKND loves circles.

THE PROFILE OF THE ARCHITECTURE PROFESSION IS NOT A PROFILE OF THE BROADER POPULATION OF THE COUNTRY. lum,” she argued. “There needs to be a stronger voice for the students in the school’s governance.”

And perhaps Berke will understand that students’ frustration stems from lack of transparency and of voice. She knows Yale as a faculty member, having taught students for over two decades.

She knows Yale as an architect, having designed Holcombe Green Hall for the School of Art. But she also knows what it means to be a student — what it means to wonder and dream. She remembers how it felt to be 14 years old and wandering around New York City, looking at buildings and thinking: Where did they come from? Who built them? What do they mean to me?

“People have high expectations for the architecture school,” she said. “This will be a fresh beginning.”

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

WKND RECOMMENDS: Wooster Square Farmer’s Market.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

SAY IT LIKE THE STARS // BY GRACE CASTILLO Aries: An unexpected surplus of time will surface midweek — make sure to keep an eye out! This is also a good week to get your creative juices flowing. Ideas you generate during the next few days, particularly those pertaining to career plans (#summerinternship2016), will garner success (#goldman).

Study Break from the Stars: stand outside the Green Teahouse and drink free samples until they kick you out.

Taurus: This is also a week to watch your wallet, since a larger, unexpected cost might come up towards the end of the week. Plan for the future, and make sure to keep expenditures low over the next few days — that’s right, no more spontaneous GHeav in the wee hours.

Study Break from the Stars: “Swann’s Way.” Gemini: Toward the end of the week, unexpected romantic interests will arise. Now is a great time to go out on a limb, perhaps literally — the planets’ alignment nearly guarantees a positive out-

come should you choose to take a risk.

Study Break from the Stars: road-trip across the U.S.A. Find yourself.

stars will be well-aligned to make a change.

Study Break from the Stars: go apple picking, but unless you get a prof pic it’s not even worth it.

Cancer: This week you may feel done with the past, but the past isn’t done with you. Unfinished business, either academic or personal, will resurface soon; but if you plan ahead you can use it to your advantage.

Study Break from the Stars: pop into Kiko Milano for some mascara that will help you ace your midterm.

Libra: The secret you’ve been hiding is on the verge of discovery, so the best thing to do is to speak up now. That’s right, you really need to tell your mom you’re not coming home for Fall Break.

Study Break from the Stars: eat a combination of junk that makes you feel sick to think about.

Leo: Someone close to you is going through a rough patch — take time to check in and see if you can help. It’ll pay off later when you need another’s shoulder to lean on.

Study Break from the Stars: bike to Edgewood Park. Seriously.

It’s beautiful.

Virgo: Take stock of your love life. Whether your problems involve prospects or lack thereof, think about what you want for the future. During the weekend the

Scorpio: Midterms are making you weaker and sleepier than usual, but if you find the energy to make it through the first part of the week, the going will get easier from there.

Study Break from the Stars: Union League Cafe.

Sagittarius: You’ve been holding a grudge for too long. The best thing you can do right now is let it go — it might feel like losing at first, but a month from now you can sit back, relax and witness karma in action.

Study Break from the Stars: nap

through your midterms.

Capricorn: Switch up your plans. Although your routine helps you get your work done, it’s also hemming you in. Great things are waiting for you — go find them.

Study Break from the Stars: do your reading.

Aquarius: The stars have opened a narrow window of creativity this week and letting it pass by would be a waste. Inspiration will come to you, but only if you meet it halfway.

Study Break from the Stars: life-changing haircut.

Pisces: If it feels like life has pulled the rug out from under you, don’t get overwhelmed. Go back to square one, and this time take the road less traveled. The stars and Robert Frost say it will make all the difference.

Study Break for the Stars: go to a Master’s Tea — just kidding, Netflix in bed. You know you want to.

Contact GRACE CASTILLO at grace.castillo@yale.edu.

//CHAI-RIN KIM

Brandon Flowers, On His Own // BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH First comes the heavy, teasing punch and deep reverberations of brass, bass, saxophone.

Then comes the beckoning hope of the opening line, delivered with desperation: “The highway was teasing me/With promises and visions of a country unseen/ In a black limousine.” So begins “Dreams Come True,” the furious opener to Brandon Flowers’ “The Desired Effect,” released earlier this year. The album is Flowers’ second solo effort outside of his role as lead singer of The Killers, and its bright poppy fervor makes it the best music he h a s

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lonely road leading out into the desert night. But those two songs were buried deep among tracks that were barely mediocre. “Here With Me” and “Be Still,” with their plodding refrains and clichéd lyrics, count among the most notable culprits. “Battle Born” showed promise; it hinted released to date. at the Flowers’ abilities as a singer The Killers’ last record was and songwriter, but the album a torrid affair. “Battle Born,” amounted to nothing but disapreleased in 2012, had some mag- pointment. nificent songs, notably “RunLuckily for all concerned, aways” and “Miss Atomic Bomb.” Flowers’ new solo release moves These were arena-rock epics, beyond all that. In 2012 he was a full of massive, rising rock star, holding alight the dying hooks with all flame of the 1970s; now he is a the prom- pop star, striding boldly into the ise of new era, his songs humming and t h e pulsing with an infectious modern flair. Stepping aside from The Killers seems to have invigorated him with a tangible energy sorely missing from the band’s stultifying stadium ballads.

Now he sings with a wry smile on his face, looking somehow younger than he did when he first broke onto the scene 10 years ago.

He might as well be an entirely new artist, one who sees the power of pop music and has determined to use it to its greatest end.

T h e strongest song on the album, the one that best demonstrates the //CAROLINE TISDALE evolution

NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH CRITIC OF NOTES

PRINCESS MONONOKE WHC // 2 p.m.

“Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.

of Brandon Flowers, is the closing track, “The Way It’s Always Been.” It opens with a quiet choir moaning over a slow, steady beat.

“They closed down the Golden Sahara Hotel/Jessica says it won’t be long ’till they blow it all to hell,” Flowers sings, and in those two lines he locates himself within an entire tradition of decay and depression, stretching all the way back to the Delta blues singers who laid the foundations for this art.

The song builds, Flowers’ lyrics evoking a particular sense of fin-de-siècle melancholy. His lyrics shine here; they’re better than nearly any others he has ever written. An image here, a prayer there, a desperate plea: “A shift at the chemical plant, a white wedding dress/I wake up every morning and I wonder if I’m gonna pass the test.” Like the rest of the album, the song drips with the same American iconography that lies at the core of The Killer’s best work: football stands, rusting Chevrolet hulks and above all the temptation of the open road. All the while the percussion beats on and the accompaniment becomes layered; a trumpet appears from the background, and then a twinkling guitar emerges near the finale. God watches over it all, and the song ends flawlessly as it touches on universality: “Ain’t that the way it’s always been?/ Sitting at the water’s edge waiting for the fog to clear/Tackle or touch, you sink or you swim/And hoping that He’s really got the power to save us from these sins.”

Songs like “The Way It’s Always Been” pepper the album and provide its most poignant moments.

“Between Me and You,” with its tender evocation of unconditional affection, springs to mind, as does

“Untangled Love,” the album’s penultimate track, a storming fury that begins with a bang and never lets up. This is pop music, but it’s rock ’n’ roll too, drawing on the cultural landmarks Flowers used to such great effect in Killers songs like “A Dustland Fairytale” and “When You Were Young.” What has changed from those earlier works is that those landmarks no longer weigh down the music. Now they are sources of freedom and liberation, and Flowers sounds all the better for it.

Because, at its core, rock ’n’ roll is about myth-making. More than a genre, it’s about creating and repeating the modern myths upon which the American psyche is constructed. This mission requires unquestioning belief among its proselytizers, who resemble fiery evangelical preachers more than they do traditional musicians schooled in the technical side of the art.

Rock ’n’ roll singers, if they are to retain fidelity to their creed, must sing and perform with the deepest sincerity; irony has no place in the rock ’n’ roll project.

And Brandon Flowers is a distinctly unironic singer. One cannot doubt him when he sings — everything he says must be true; there seems no other option.

Without this sincerity, this rejection of any shade of self-doubt, songs like “The Way It’s Always Been” or “Between Me and You” could never succeed. His fervent conviction to his practice makes this album a triumph. I doubt any other singer could have pulled this off — such is the captivating enigma that is Brandon Flowers.

Contact NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu.

WKND RECOMMENDS: The Slavic Reading Room.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND THEATER

THE HILARITY OF VIOLENCE // BY ANDREW RUYS DE PEREZ The elaborate, mysterious patchwork curtain that covers half of the set is the first thing I notice as I walk into the Yale Dramat’s dress rehearsal for “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.” The Stars and Stripes, intermittent disturbing saw-shaped patches and the familiar silhouettes of Marge and Homer Simpson make up this enormous drape. In hindsight, this curtain — along with the broken-in lawn furniture, beer bottle litter and musty couch arranged on stage — should have been the first sign that I was not in for the usual fun romp with America’s favorite cartoon family.

“Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” does not neatly fall into any Shakespearean category of comedy, tragedy or history. The emotional adventure that the play flings you into from the get-go accentuates its indefinability. I found myself in hysterics over the cast’s satire on a capella, only seconds later to be horrified at a terrifying plot twist. The threeact play presents three different time periods in a post-apocalyptic world resulting from an apparent mass nuclear meltdown. The characters deal with the ever-growing societal importance of The Simpsons after the catastrophe. Even without the ability to watch TV, the memory of the strange yellow family not only survives but also flourishes and transforms through active cultural preservation. The play progresses slowly in the first act, characterized by dark, introspective dialogues between the early survivors of the meltdown. But those who stay to the final scenes are rewarded with an almost psychedelic, operatic ode to The Simpsons.

The play challenged me. It pushed me to confront our current obsessions with pop culture, to think about nuclear energy and to grapple with the

use of violence as entertainment.

The director Miles Walter ‘18, as well as the entire cast and crew, excelled at conveying the inherent tragedy in the new postapocalyptic world and also lulling the audience into a false sense of security during the production’s humorous moments. The contrast between the depraved, violent scenes and the seemingly trivial, lighthearted ones created a rollercoaster ride which kept the audience guessing at which new horror, or new joke, would unfold next.

A live band, intricate costumes, an outstanding set and a staggeringly energetic cast all drive the play forward. Almost every single actor is present onstage for the majority of the production and plays multiple main roles. The cast achieves a difficult nuance in their characters, who with futile attempts at joy and amusement continuously try to hide the sadness and degradation rife in each scene. The black comedy of “Mr. Burns” simply cannot contain the grimness of its characters’ situation.

I was reminded, as I watched the Dramat’s production, of Euripides’ “Bacchae,” in which comedic elements cannot hide tragic realities. “Prepare yourself for the roaring voice of the god of Joy!” declares Dionysus, the play’s protagonist, even as he goes on to entrance his female relatives into ripping his cousin to shreds. “Things go too far! Absolutely brilliant,” declares a character in “Mr. Burns” about the hilarity of violence in The Simpsons’ “Itchy & Scratchy,” even as a nuclear meltdown has killed everyone he loves.

Even after dissolving into horror and violence, “Mr. Burns” remains insightful and even more enjoyable than meeting Malia Obama, the leader of the free world’s daughter, who happened

to be in my suite while I was watching the play. The combination of so many unique elements — a blurring of reality and fiction, The Simpsons theme song to a funerary march, impassioned singing riffs and a dress rehearsal within a dress rehearsal, to name a few — made “Mr. Burns” not only compelling and memorable, but unlike anything I have ever seen before or anything I could describe. I became so spellbound by the play that I even believed

that the cast had stopped the actual dress rehearsal when a character flubbed her lines in the fake dress rehearsal. I literally became lost in the sinister and spooky, yet outlandish and kooky, world of “Mr. Burns.”

The play caused me to ponder how the legacy of our society, with its specific cultural intricacies and pop-culture icons, will develop. How will my consumption of pop culture be different in the future? The character

of Mr. Burns and his connection with nuclear power now have a new, horrific meaning for me, and I suspect that I will never be able to watch “The Simpsons” in the same way again. “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” walks, as one character describes gleefully about her own art, “the fine line between tantalization and torture.”

Contact ANDREW RUYS DE PEREZ at andrew.ruysdeperez@yale.edu .

//CHRIS RUDEEN

“Angel-Headed Hipsters” Wanted at the Yale Cabaret // BY AGNES ENKHTAMIR

//IRENE JIANG

SUNDAY OCTOBER

11

Do you frequently use the word “bourgeoisie”? Do you like watching mildly attractive British boys with their hands in their pants? Do you wear turtlenecks? Then the Yale Cabaret’s latest production, “I’m With You in Rockland,” is the show for you.

The ambitious theatrical performance — the brainchild of Kevin Hourigan DRA ’17 — strives to be a commentary on art, the culture it breeds between creators and the relationship between the Artist and the Consumer of Art through a sometimesmocking analysis of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

While the play occasionally asks questions that any student who has taken a few art history classes could repeat with a dead look in their eyes — “What is art?” “Who is an artist?” “Why do we make art?” etc. — the production adds new dimension to these tired refrains. In the third act, a scholar asks, “Is terrorism art?” He proceeds to play an audio recording from 9/11 of a German poet who suggested that the single-minded passion of the terrorists could be understood as that of artists.

This question, and its response, shocked me — and not just because of the provocative content. In that dimmed theater, the argument seemed rational, and that was frightening. But this was precisely the reaction that the production aimed to evoke. If terrorism can be art,

JUVENILE JUSTICE MARCH District Courhouse // 2 p.m.

March three miles to rally for better youth criminal services here in New Haven.

what else could be?

Never did I feel more in the heart of a Liberal Arts College than when I was sitting in this theater watching these “angel-headed hipsters” perform. Television sets from the ’90s are littered throughout the sparsely furnished set. There’s a box at center stage and a plastic desk with four chairs toward the front. Painted across the walls are hundreds of iterations of “I SAW THE GREATEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION ______,” the incomplete opening line of Ginsberg’s magnum opus.

The sentences drip together.

Before the play began, the director handed brightly colored Crayola chalk out to the audience, asking us to “finish the sentence.” An actor asked us whether we would repeat into a microphone what we’d written on the walls. “I SAW THE GREATEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION eating their words,” read one.

“I SAW THE GREATEST MINDS OF MY GENERATION stink,” said another.

Josh Goulding DRA ’17 as Ginsberg is perhaps the show’s greatest asset. His portrayal — though exaggerated at times — of an uncomfortable character was so believable that I found it hard to watch. When his shoulders tensed at the bearded scholars’ criticisms, it made my stomach drop. Goulding made it personal.

The band — all Yale School

of Music students — was excellent. The mood they offered, reaching from frenetic to hypnotic somehow flavored each scene just right.

In sum: The band was also excellent. The set designers, the stage managers and the ensemble were excellent. It’s very hard to criticize this play for anything aside from being repetitive.

The theme, the heart of what this play wants the audience to come away with, is an old concept. It’s been harped upon in too many classes to pack the punch that Hourigan hoped for.

But maybe that was his intention. The play mocks the creation of art sometimes. It mocks the critics who stand on high hills and categorize “art” from the “not art.” It mocks the consumers of art that do nothing about it. Most of all, it mocks artists; there’s a hint of irony in every move the actors make onstage. They’re mocking themselves; they’re making art.

If everything is art, what isn’t? If everything is art, then is anything art? Do we even need to know?

The show leaves the questions unanswered, but provides plenty of food for thought. “I’m With You in Rockland” will be playing at the Yale Cabaret Oct. 8–10.

Student tickets are $14.

Contact AGNES ENKHTAMIR at dulguum.enkhtamir@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Vegas.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

TAKE AN ART CLASS: A CONVERSATION WITH LAYLAH ALI

Artist Laylah Ali is best known for her series “Greenheads,” featuring eerie paintings whose calmly-colored backgrounds don’t quite jibe with the violence of the eponymous Greenheads

// BY AGNES ENKHTAMIR Q: Having earned your B.A. in English and Studio Art, was it difficult for you to transition from being a writer and an artist to being a painter full time? How have you bridged the gap between writing and painting?

A: I was actually using words in my work then as an undergraduate at Williams, or trying to. I was also really interested in poetry.

I had to readjust when I went to graduate school. I needed to focus on visual matters; that’s partially why I stopped giving focused attention to poetry — I needed all my creative energy to focus on [painting].

Now, when I’ve tried to write again, it’s rough. I’m not as good as I was when I was 22, so the way that language would enter into my work seems much rougher.

Less polished, and that has been uncomfortable. I haven’t really reconciled how language would exist in my paintings, though I did a series called “Note Drawings” that was my first serious tangle with it.

Q: The paintings in the Greenheads series aren’t titled.

Why did you choose to leave them untitled?

A: Not titling something really makes the viewer rely somewhat on what they’re bringing to the picture, and having the viewer name what a particular action is, or what they’re calling that figure, or naming the gender of the figure — is of interest to me. The act of articulation becomes the viewer’s responsibility.

For my work, it increases audience participation. I’m withholding that final naming, the final flourish. I’m taking the period off the sentence, leaving an opening.

Q: Was it difficult for you to claim the title “artist”?

A: A little, yeah. Even though I really was interested in making art, it wasn’t until I was 30 that I accepted the term.

I took studio art classes at Williams College as an undergraduate. Otherwise, I probably would have been a history major. Studio art classes had an openness and ability to deal with the whole person that my other classes did not have. I kept taking studio art classes not because I wanted to be an artist but because I loved the classes.

Q: You’re known for your meticulous and precise way of painting. What else does your process include?

A: I start with sketches, really crude pencil sketches on Xerox paper, and then I start to weed out ideas that don’t have layered narratives. I then go into the studio and start working with the good paper, laying things out more specifically, mathematically.

After that, a great deal of time is spent on exacting pencil drawings for each painting. And then I

that she depicts. Her most recent work is the “Acephalous” mix precise colors and spend time testing them.

[The Greenheads] look simple in some ways, but they take a long time to make. But they first start with an easy sketch.

Q: These paintings take a long time, then. Is it hard, after keeping them to just yourself for such a long time, to present them to the public?

A: [The paintings] aren’t personal after a while; I make my characters, my figures, to exist as public characters. They are meant to ultimately seal themselves off from me and live by themselves.

When I see the “Greenheads” after being away from them, I can sometimes approach that older work with fresh eyes, like I am new to the work. That comes with some time and distance, though.

Q: Do you make art for yourself or for the public?

A: It’s both.

When I work, I have to think of the audience for some practical considerations, but it’s not why I make the work. My first audience is myself. The painting has to get past me. I’m the toughest audience those paintings are ever going to have.

The second audience is the people who are going to see them.

Q: A lot of your work has been interpreted as a commentary on power and privilege differences.

You have some privilege here, as a person who was able to get an education. Is it difficult for you to bridge the gap between your own privilege and trying to speak for others who have none?

A: I was raised working class in a white suburb of Buffalo, New York in the ’70s. We had constant money issues and struggled financially. After attending a public elementary school [until] the age of 12, I started to go to a private school, and the teachers there encouraged me to go to Williams.

Privilege begets more privilege.

When you’re at a place like Williams or Yale, it’s easy to forget that it is unusual to have these kinds of privileges. I’m grateful for what I’ve had, but I have never forgotten what that sort of class dislocation feels like.

I am not sure that I do indeed speak effectively in the way you mention. I try. But my art itself does not have a clear political agenda. You are more likely to hear my political opinions speaking to me in person rather than looking at my art.

I do believe that our culture has an imbalance when it comes to creativity and access to that part of us, each of us, that has creative potential. Developing that creativity is a human necessity. Not many people are given the time or space to explore that.

what would you say to them?

A: Your question is predicated on prodding people to see things.

I would instead put a plug in to convince people to take a class in which you can be creative: a drawing class, music composition, intro to acting, creative writing.

Going to see art or theater or hear music is one thing, and I recommend that, of course, but once you know what it is to create things, you’re more likely to engage with various art forms on a regular basis.

Carve out a space for a creative class in your undergraduate education. You probably won’t do it any other time. You probably won’t do it unless you do it now.

series, currently on view in the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York City. Ali has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among others.

Ali, currently a professor at Williams College — where she earned her B.A. — sat down with WKND to talk paint, politics and privilege.

Q: You’ve mentioned that your art is influenced by the Scooby-Doo cartoons, whether you like it or not. Have you had any other pop culture influences?

A: I watched crazy amounts of television growing up, including but not limited to “Scooby-Doo.” And this was before TV had 150 channels — there were only four channels, but one still managed to fill hours of time with them.

I spent too much time watching TV on a rectangle. It would be dishonest for me to say that didn’t have some sort of visual influence on me. There’s a different relationship between me and that 1970s TV [from] you and your computer. It was equally influential, I think, in how I could isolate the rectangle from everything around me. You can stare at that rectangle, but the contemporary computer is interactive.

Also, I grew up in Buffalo where it snowed 8 months a year. I just had to figure stuff out. It’s snowing. What do you do? Indoor creativity happens when you’re left alone and one could only watch so many reruns of “Gilligan’s Island.”

Q: Yale is a very privileged place; kids whose parents never expected them to go to college are a minority. Is there anything you’d like to say specifically to this community?

A: Yale and Williams, where I teach — these are places that on some level operate as if they are primarily for the wealthy. That does not represent the truth of who is actually at those places.

I believe that wealthy institutions must make the playing field as level as they can. The daughter of an investment banker will graduate with no debt, but so should the daughter of the welder who is on financial aid. There should be a lived example of equality. The wealth gap is a huge, pressing issue in our country and educational institutions have an obligation to help address those inequalities, especially institutions with billions of dollars.

Q: To people who aren’t interested in or have never consumed art —

Contact AGNES ENKHTAMIR at dulguun.enkhtamir@yale.edu .

“

ONCE YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS TO CREATE THINGS, YOU’RE MORE LIKELY TO ENGAGE WITH VARIOUS ART FORMS ON A REGULAR BASIS.

“ //COURTESY OF LAYLAH ALI