Today's Paper

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 41 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY CLEAR

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CROSS CAMPUS

SMOKING HOT UNKNOWN GOOD OF NICOTINE

END TO DRY SPELL

BRAVE NEW WEB

Sex and Sexuality Week returns to campus after two-year hiatus

DECADE-OLD YALE WEBSITE SEES REDESIGN

PAGES 13-14 SCI-TECH

PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY

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Admin. investigates SAE racism charges

Civic duty. It’s Election

Day. Take advantage of Connecticut’s same-day registration to head to the polls and cast your votes for mayor and alder. Ward 1 residents may vote at the New Haven Free Public Library on Elm Street. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The other side of the aisle.

According to the same national poll, Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 has increased her lead over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race. Of about 400 likely voters, 62 percent supported Clinton while 31 percent backed Sanders, increasing the point margin between the two candidates from 25 to 31 points.

It’s your time. Class of 2017,

your moment has come.

Tomorrow, Bain & Company is holding an information session for summer internships at 8 p.m. at the Omni Hotel. So go to J. Crew, and buy your coffee chat outfit today. When it comes to making a good first impression, no detail is too small. Bain is seeking “world changers.”

Midterm season isn’t over.

Take one more test. Student Health and Student Wellness, in collaboration with several Greek organizations, will host the STI Testing Party at Yale Health from 4 to 7 p.m. today. The organizers will provide drinks and snacks and clinicians will offer free STI consultations. The event is part of this year’s Sex and Sexuality Week.

Get physical. Yale Women in Physics will host their annual “Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Study Break” at the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design at 8 p.m. this evening. The event aims to bring together female students in STEM. For the greater good. The

Office of Career Strategy will host its second annual Public Interest Internship Fair this evening at 5:30 p.m. in the President’s Room in Woolsey Hall. The event will be attended by representatives from the U.S. Senate as well as the White House Internship Program.

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1993 John DeStefano is elected to his first term as mayor of New Haven in a landslide victory. DeStefano takes 80 percent of the total vote, including 82 percent of the Ward 1 vote, and goes on to serve five consecutive terms.

Follow along for the News’ latest.

Twitter | @yaledailynews

y

Men’s and women’s cross country teams dominate contest PAGE 14 SPORTS

Ward 1 candidates to finish race

BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER

have sparked outrage on campus and attracted widespread attention from national media sources, including The Washington Post. Still, leaders of Yale’s chapter of the fraternity continue to categorically deny all allegations of racist conduct.

Dean of Student Engagement

With voters set to head to the polls Tuesday, incumbent Sarah Eidelson ’12 and Republican challenger Ugonna Eze ’16 are making their final pushes in the race for Ward 1 alder.

Both campaigns have revved into high gear in the past few days, holding campaign events and blanketing poster boards across campus with flyers. Eze’s campaign has disseminated posters that feature quotes from campus publications that criticize his opponent, but Eidelson has shied away from similar methods. Instead, she has focused on publicizing ways in which Yale can contribute to alleviating some of the city’s problems, such as unemployment.

Both campaigns have also run door-to-door canvassing operations over the last week, though Eze’s has been more limited in scope than Eidelson’s. Eze’s joint campaign manager Mollie Johnson ’18 said his canvassing has involved the candidate going door to door with members of the residential college in which he is canvassing.

Eidelson and her team of volunteers

SEE SAE PAGE 6

SEE ELECTION PAGE 6

’Dogs on top. According to

a new national poll, former Yale Corporation member Ben Carson ’73 has edged a lead over Donald Trump in the Republican presidential race. The NBC News/ Wall Street Journal survey, released last night, shows Carson with 29 points to Trump’s 23. The third-place candidate, Marco Rubio, is far behind with 11 points.

HEPS: A+

WA LIU/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

More details have emerged about allegations of racism at SAE on Friday night.

BY JON VICTOR AND JOEY YE STAFF REPORTERS With new, conflicting details emerging around allegations that members of Yale’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon racially discriminated against partygoers at an event at the fraternity’s house Friday night, University administrators are working

to determine the authenticity of the claims.

At the party, according to a Facebook post Neema Githere ’18 published the next day, a brother at the door of the house allegedly turned away a group of women of color, telling them the party was for “white girls only.” Although Githere was not in attendance Friday, her claims

Suspected norovirus outbreak at Yale Law School

BY QI XU AND PADDY GAVIN STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Starting last Wednesday evening, dozens of Yale Law School students have fallen ill, reporting vomiting, nausea and other gastrointestinal-related symptoms similar to those of the norovirus infection, according to administrators at the law school. The cause of the illness is still under investigation, said Janet Conroy, Yale Law director of public affairs. In the last few days, the Yale University Office of Facilities deep-cleaned all public spaces within the law school building and Baker Hall to prevent the illness’s further spread, she added.

In an email sent to the law school community on Friday morning, Yale Law School Dean Robert Post advised students experiencing symptoms to stay at home and seek medical assistance at Yale Health.

In a subsequent message sent to the school on Sunday morning, Post wrote that the Connecticut Department of Public Health and the New Haven Board of Health are collaborating on a survey which will be sent to the law school community early this week to investigate the illness. In his email, Post encouraged those who are feeling sick to respond to the survey.

Alexandra Francis LAW ’18 told the News that a number of the sick students had eaten sandwiches catered by the Law School dining hall at lunchtime on Tuesday, Oct. 27. Several first-year law school students suspect the outbreak may be linked to the sandwiches, Francis added.

On Saturday, the News obtained an email thread sent on Oct. 29 and 30, which records the reaction of sev-

IRENE JIANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

SEE LAW SCHOOL PAGE 8

Law students speculate that food poisoning caused over 25 students to exhibit norovirus-like symptoms.

Med school income soars as federal funding falters

BY FINNEGAN SCHICK AND PADDY GAVIN STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Revenue from the Yale School of Medicine is rising, even as federal funding for health care and research remains under pressure at Yale and universities across the country.

According to Yale’s annual financial report released last week, revenue from Yale’s medical services in 2015 increased by 12.4 percent from 2014. While federal grants are integral for generating revenue research at universities like Yale, federal funding has stagnated over the past 10 years. The School of Medicine received over threefourths of the University’s grant and contract income — $525.28 million — but the total income

from grants fell 0.02 percent from 2014. Research money given to universities like Yale by the federal government is largely determined by the actions of the U.S. Congress, who last week settled on a budget agreement with President Barack Obama that may increase funding for the National Institutes of Health. But if the NIH does not receive more funding through the budget agreement, School of Medicine Dean Robert Alpern said Yale needs to shift toward new sources of funding for its research.

“We need to be prepared to have revenue from other sources,” Alpern said. “Universities are under pressure because they’re having to supSEE INCOME PAGE 6

Sexuality, health at Yale-NUS

BY QI XU STAFF REPORTER Though conversations about sex and sexuality are gaining momentum at YaleNUS, the college has yet to establish administrative bodies or formal resources dedicated exclusively to promoting sexual health and combating sexual misconduct on campus.

Yale-NUS’ Office of the Dean of Students, which includes a wellness team, is students’ primary point of contact for sex-related issues. In September, the office hired Doris Yek as its first health coordinator.

Additionally, for the first time, Yale-NUS is hosting “Doing it Right” this week — a series of conversations and events that serves as a counterpart to Yale’s Sex and Sexuality Week. These

developments come amidst increasing student calls for sexual health resources.

But unlike at Yale, where resources such as the Consent and Communication Educators, the UniversityWide Committee on Sexual Misconduct and the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education Center are dedicated exclusively to sex-related issues, YaleNUS’ resources have a less specific scope. For example, while Yek’s responsibilities include assisting students with sexually transmitted infections, she also provides basic medical and nursing treatment, health advice and information about the school’s health policies. Administrators in the Office of the Dean of Students said student-driven efforts on sexual climate have been more

important than administrative ones.

“Frankly, student-run campaigns on issues of sex and sexuality are far, far more successful than those run by administrators,” Interim Dean of Students Brian McAdoo said.

Still, the school does offer some formal training and workshops similar to those at Yale. Every year, Yale-NUS collaborates with both local and international organizations to provide training for the deans’ fellows, college rectors and health and wellness staff to tackle sexual issues.

The school partners with the Association of Women for Action and Research, Singapore’s leading gender equality advocacy group, to explain social norms and SEE YALE-NUS PAGE 8

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “Such trivial forms of 'justice' as restrictions on Halloween costume attire are yaledailynews.com/opinion

counterproductive and silly.”

'ELISTUDENT' ON 'ARONSON: DEFENDING ERIKA CHRISTAKIS'

G U E S T C O L U M N I S T R YA N W I L S O N

GUEST COLUMNIST TONI HARP

Unintended consequences

The fight for at-risk youth

T

he Wednesday before Halloween, Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent out an email encouraging students to consider the unintended consequences that wearing certain costumes can have on Yale’s “sense of community.”

The email was a request that we grapple with how, despite even benign intentions, our costumes can ridicule, marginalize and misrepresent people on the basis of “race, nationality, religious belief or gender expression.” Many welcomed the email, glad that the Yale administration was acknowledging the need for sensitivity. To many students, including myself, the email meant that the voices of minority and marginalized students were finally being heard.

That is why we were surprised and disappointed when, the day before Halloween, another email was sent out to the students of Silliman College by Associate Master Erika Christakis, which seemingly dismissed the Intercultural Affairs Committee’s email as institutional overreach.

In response, with support and suggestions from many of my fellow students, I penned an open letter to Christakis. In the letter, I point out how her email could be harmful and unhelpful to students dealing with marginalization on campus. A couple days after writing the letter — which garnered hundreds of signatures — I met with Christakis in person for what I felt was a quite enjoyable brunch. After talking with her, it was clear that dismissing the voices of marginalized students or trivializing racist practices was never her intention.

Unfortunately, when it comes to perpetuating stereotypes, bias, racism, etc., intentions don’t always matter, and that’s why this conversation about free speech and appropriation is so important.

UNFORTUNATELY, WHEN IT COMES TO PERPETUATING STEREOTYPES, BIAS, RACISM, ETC., INTENTIONS DON’T ALWAYS MATTER Despite what critics of the open letter have claimed, an otherwise tolerant person with good intentions who endorses stereotypes for even one night is still racist and harmful. Whether or not I hit someone in the face accidentally, I still hit them in the

face. As Ta-Nehisi Coates points out in his article “The Good, Racist People,” racism is not “the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed.” The Intercultural Affairs Committee’s email was sent in acknowledgement of this fact; college students might not always see the consequences of what seems to be benign racism, and, if possible, conversations should be started before harm is done.

Emails like the one put out by the Intercultural Affairs Committee are helpful because, on a night like Halloween, calling out offensive costumes can be difficult. At times, offenders can become defensive and belligerent; I have heard of several women who were aggressively rebuked and sexually harassed when confronting a group of men wearing racist costumes. Students can become dismissive because they are “tired of talking about race.” Not everyone is prepared to call out strangers or even friends for fear of being ostracized, heckled, ridiculed or worse.

Meanwhile, looking away or ignoring such costumes is also difficult. Many stereotypes portrayed in the offensive costumes mentioned by the IAC play directly into tropes that erase, oversexualize, criminalize or alienate marginalized people both on and off campus. As a university located in a city primarily inhabited and staffed by people of color, we have a responsibility to think critically about the stereotypes and systems of oppression that we are replicating, even unintentionally. One event in particular, has been haunting me.

In my freshman year, a group at Yale decided to hold a party.

The theme was “gangstas.”

They dressed up in clothes they thought would be found in the inner cities: baggy shorts, backwards baseball caps and white T-shirts. Some even did their hair in their best imitations of black hairstyles. I only came to know about this because one of the partygoers had borrowed a pair of my basketball shorts for the event. In trying to dress up as “gangstas,” they were actually dressing up as so many black kids I had seen all my life on the playground, growing up in school and here at Yale. They had dressed up as my family and my friends.

They had dressed up as me. They had equated gang members with normal black youth. Regardless of whether or not they intended to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of black people as criminals, after the party they were able to take the stereotypes off.

Some of us will have to wear them for the rest of our lives.

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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

decrease crime trends and bring down the unemployment rate.

But I’m so much prouder of the programs, like our new YouthStat initiative, that bring help specifically to our community’s most vulnerable young people.

I BELIEVE THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD STAND BETWEEN THESE YOUNG PEOPLE AND HOPELESSNESS AND DESPAIR I want a bright future for our city: a future where no one feels unsafe walking New Haven’s streets, where all young people have opportunities to grow and thrive and where everyone who wants a good job can find one. And I believe that an active, strong local government is essential to making that goal

a reality.

Since taking office, my administration has worked to create a new drop-in youth center called The Escape that will open early next year. The Youth Services Committee on our Board of Alders, under the leadership of Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson, has been a key partner in advocating for more youth opportunities and spaces in our city. The Escape will include a shelter with beds for homeless teens. Rather than following the traditional youth center model with mandated activities for participating youth, The Escape will be a safe place where young people can simply spend time with each other. There will be rich programming and casemanagement options on hand, but the focus is to create a space that our city’s youth can call their own.

The Escape is a great example of the way that local government can be a force for good in the lives of our most vulnerable residents. But it’s hardly the only one. With more police officers walking beats, our city is safer than it was two years ago.

It has more good jobs, thanks to programs like our New Small

Business Development Office and New Haven Works. Our city is a better place to be a young person than it was two years ago. Due to programs such as YouthStat, more of our young people are in school every day.

More of them are passing their classes, graduating and making their way to college and a better life.

But we still have work to do.

The Escape cannot provide beds for all 420 homeless youth or one new business employ all of New Haven’s out-of-work residents. That is why I am asking you for your support today. As your mayor, I will keep bringing people together. I will keep making sure that we are all empowered to innovate, to try, to measure and to try again. We will stay united as a city and as a Democratic Party. And, together, we will create a New Haven where no young person has to worry about where to spend the night, because they know that their government has their back.

TONI HARP is the 50th mayor of New Haven and is running for reelection. Contact her at MayorHarp@newhavenct.net .

Make it to the polls L

ast week in section, my classmate mentioned a term I’d never heard before: Yalien. It was a nickname, she said, imparted to her by a local New Haven hairdresser. “Yaliens” — the breed of creatures that infiltrate the city for four years or so.

They occasionally seek out haircuts but for the most part remain confined to their Gothic territory.

This nickname shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s yet another manifestation of that town-gown divide that at this point is almost a cliché.

But one day each year offers us the opportunity to dismantle that much discussed division, if only just a bit. Election Day gives most students, regardless of their involvement in local politics, the chance to think more actively about our vision for New Haven and our place within this city. It’s unfortunately an opportunity that vast swaths of the student body turn down.

In the 2013 election, 29 percent of registered voters in New Haven turned out to vote — a 5 per-

cent increase in turnout from 2011 and a 10 percent increase from 2009.

Yet in Ward 1, in which Yalies are the main EMMA GOLDBERG constituents, voter turnout diminished Dilemmas despite the fierce contest between incumbent Sarah Eidelson ’12 and challenger Paul Chandler ’14.

That diminished voter turnout signifies something troubling to the residents of New Haven: It says we don’t care. It says we can’t be bothered to think critically about local government and cast our votes for the plans and policies that resonate with us. It reinforces that “Yalien” notion, the idea that this city isn’t really our home.

Last year on Election Day, I spent the morning distributing “Get out the vote” door hang-

ers. I was surprised by the number of students I encountered who point-blank told me they had no time to vote.

I wanted to tell them voting would never get easier than it is now: Our polling place is mere blocks away and rarely has long lines. Thanks to Public Act 12-56, passed in May 2012, Connecticut residents can now register to vote on Election Day. And lack of information is hardly an excuse.

In the weeks before Election Day, student organizations distribute every pamphlet and article and infographic one would need to choose between the candidates.

Social scientists have found that voting at a young age creates a pattern of behavior. If you make voting a priority early on in life, you’re more likely to continue making the time for it every consecutive year. Yalies are busy and everyone has homework and meetings and class — but what do our current actions say about our level of future political involvement? By making up excuses now, we’re priming ourselves for a

future of disengagement.

Last year, standing on line to vote, I was struck by the number of New Haven residents who had made every sacrifice necessary to ensure they could get to the polls on time. I overheard Yale employees who were using their preciously limited break time to vote. Other volunteers told stories of voters who had made complex arrangements to leave work early or have neighbors pick their children up from school so they could make it to the polls. This degree of effort demonstrates how deeply residents care about the future of our community. It’s easy, in the moment, to generate a litany of excuses that justify our unwillingness to make it to the polls. But ultimately, those excuses have a name: apathy. Today presents a valuable opportunity to tie ourselves to this city, to prove we’re not the Yaliens we may seem.

EMMA GOLDBERG is a senior in Saybrook College. Her column runs on alternate Tuesdays. Contact her at emma.goldberg@yale.edu .

GUEST COLUMNIST EZRIEL GELBFISH

See yourself from outside

RYAN WILSON is a junior in Silliman College. Contact him at ryan.wilson@yale.edu .

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EDITOR IN CHIEF Stephanie Addenbrooke

I

n addition to the usual stresses of adolescence, hundreds of young teens in New Haven face an additional daily challenge: finding a safe place to sleep at night. A recent Board of Education study found that over 420 teens in the city stay on different friends’ or relatives’ couches every night because they don’t have a home.

Whether their family is facing joblessness, a messy divorce, abuse or their family doesn’t accept who they are, these young people face daily struggles that can make it all but impossible to stay on the right track.

I believe that the government should stand between these young people and hopelessness and despair. That is why I ran for mayor two years ago and why I am running for re-election today.

When we talk about the government, especially local government, we tend not to focus on the real impact that our choices have on people’s lives. Statistics and bureaucracy can make our government seem abstract and distant. I’m proud that in the last two years we’ve managed to balance our budgets,

A

sk the average Yalie during midterms how she’s doing and the answer you’ll get will often take the form of wishful escapism or stoic submissiveness. They’ll talk about the next time the metaphorical treadmill will be turned off for a bit, the next Fall Break or the next weekend when they’ll be freed from papers and psets. Most of the time the person is actually us, shuffling to classes on Science Hill or in Loria, grabbing a desperate nap during a break, curling up into a ball on our beds.

The assignment you have due is like a temporal cage enclosing you within the next two or five days, your soul struggling against the metal bars whose shadows lay across your Google calendar. You are bored with the work you’ve got, or are simply too exhausted to think.

I think everyone recognizes in the abstract that stress can be a good thing, although it’s

mostly a bad thing. The pressure to succeed can galvanize us to action, make us push ourselves when we’d rather leave our residential college library late at night. Stress can be that extra bit of adrenaline, keeping us in the cage instead of flying free so that the future pays its imagined dividends. But positive stress can also bring along its evil twin — anxious and fearful stress — and result in tunnel vision that makes us worry whether things will really be all right. The present is too painful, so we pine for the next reprieve.

And yet, I think almost anyone at Yale can appreciate that in the abstract we’ve all individually struck gold. So many others would love to be in our position, not only as full-time college students who are studying the arts and sciences but also as students at Yale, a storied place of illustrious creativity. Even students who are critical of Yale mostly stay on for the ride. We

endured hard work to get here and wouldn’t give up the experiences we’ve gained. So how come we let stress derail that appreciation?

Often the ball is slow to get rolling because our negative emotions make it more difficult to think straight. The pit we’ve deposited ourselves into is lined with sticky habits that make climbing toward the light a painstaking affair. But slowly, the cracks in our worldview start appearing, and we begin to see our lives for what they really are: filled with surpassing and challenging beauty. We need to keep seizing the down time in our lives to exercise our emotional muscles, so that we can gradually see ourselves from an outsider’s perspective.

This process involves realizing that our lives do reflect what we dreamed about: studying in a stimulating environment with talented peers and professors around us.

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When we’ve graduated, things will only get more difficult, as we deal with the stress of providing for a family or holding down a job. If we can’t figure out how to be happy at Yale, how will we happy anywhere else? The trick is to build a baseline contentment into ourselves that reminds us that everything will be okay.

The worries that consume so much of our present energy will, one year from now, be relegated to the unimportant memory bin of our lives — exactly where the stresses from last year’s midterms are now stashed. If we take the time to connect with ourselves, our friends and our environment, we will begin to mitigate the negative externalities of stress and anxiety that hamper our jam-packed collegiate lives.

EZRIEL GELBFISH is a senior in Davenport College. Contact him at ezriel.gelbfish@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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SAE CONTROVERSY

MAYA ANGELOU “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.”

GUEST COLUMNIST GRANT MUELLER

GUEST COLUMNIST BRIANA BURROUGHS

The real SAE B

y now, you’ve probably seen the Facebook status, posted on Saturday night, which alleges that a brother of Sigma Alpha Epsilon denied admission to an African-American woman the night before, citing a “White Girls Only” policy. Perhaps you have liked or shared it. Certainly, if you’ve seen it, it has changed your perception of us and our values.

The alleged incident took place at our annual Halloween party open to all Yale students. The party was not “White Girls Only.” After learning about the accusations through the Facebook post, we immediately started an investigation into the incident. “White Girls Only” and the sentiment it expresses in no way describes our admission policy for social events. Entry into our home is by no means determined by race. Our party was diverse in attendance, with attendees of all races, genders and sexual orientations, as is every social event we host. Admission into the house is determined solely by safety considerations, friendship with brothers and possession of valid Yale identification.

Similarly, we categorically deny

the statement made to the Washington Post by an anonymous source, claiming to be a freshman who was shoved away from the door by a brother who said, “Who the [expletive] do you think you are — you’re clearly gay.” This did not happen, and we are appalled that anybody would believe that our fraternity — with four homosexual and bisexual brothers, one of whom lives in the house — discriminates based on sexuality. We welcome all genders and sexualities, not only at our open parties (and there were several out gay men at SAE on Friday), but at our chapter meetings and brother events.

The Facebook status has sparked a wave of anti-SAE sentiment on campus, which has disregarded all reasonable objections and left the Yale student body with one perspective on what happened on Friday night. The monolithic nature of this discussion has had harmful consequences. African-American members of SAE have received hurtful and threatening messages, including some calling them “Uncle Toms” for standing up for the diversity of our organization.

Dwight Hall has cancelled its joint

charity project with SAE and several Greek organizations, which would have raised funds to combat prostate cancer. We harbor no resentment about the Facebook status and support the effort to highlight perceived discrimination, wherever it may appear. We do regret, however, that a more thorough investigation into these claims did not occur before allegations were made.

It is deeply disheartening to see the Yale community so easily presume that any member of the fraternity would subscribe to a racially based admission policy. The most cursory glance inside the party would confirm that such a policy does not exist.

The Yale chapter of SAE is a diverse and inclusive institution made up of members of many races, faiths and sexual orientations. To suggest that the fraternity is solely made up of straight white men is not only false, but also diminishes our brothers who do not fall into these categories. To suggest that the fraternity has discriminated against people of color is simply untrue.

SAE strives to be a safe space

Just say it for all members of the Yale community. Thus far, we have enjoyed hosting events open to the public and welcoming the amazing variety of people on this campus into our home. We try to accommodate as many individuals as possible, so that we can enjoy our time as college students together. There is no room for hate in our house. Unfortunately, there is not enough room for the entire student body in our yard either. Know that if you have ever been turned away from our door it is because of limitations to our house, not because of limitations to our character.

We hope that this message will clarify any misunderstandings about the events of Friday night and reflect the true values and culture of our organization.

We welcome further discussion about inclusivity on this campus and encourage any members of the Yale community to reach out to the brothers of our organization.

GRANT MUELLER is a junior in Davenport College. He is the president of Yale’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter.

Contact him at grant.mueller@yale.edu .

CAROLINE TISDALE/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

I

’ll start by saying this — I’ve been harassed in dining halls, at fraternity houses and on New Haven streets by Yale fraternity members and male athletes. On almost every occasion, I was alone. Each time, I was physically or verbally harassed unexpectedly and at my most vulnerable, with little knowledge of why or how I had become a target. By strangers, acquaintances and, on multiple occasions, by men that today I call my “friends.”

Even after these moments, their words — from “charity case” to “ghetto Black bitch” — continued to echo in my head.

Fear paralyzed me as their discussions of my Black body and hair turned into taunts and fondling. Every incident included jeering and pointing, and some included spanking and screaming. Most, however, went unnoticed by the quiet or distracted fraternity members in the crowd of harassers and the “innocent” bystanders who felt no need to speak up.

All incidents occurred without a single word or act of defense from me.

When I became the institutional service coordinator of Dwight Hall at Yale, I decided to focus my efforts on expanding the reach of our vision of public service and social justice. To me, that meant increasing service work in communities that are seen by the greater Yale community as either unable or unwilling to regularly engage in volunteering. I knew this would involve working with both Black and white male athletes and fraternity brothers who had absentmindedly physically and verbally harassed me on several occasions. I knew this would involve engaging with fraternities who have denied women of color entrance into their houses and sexually assaulted students who have not been given their rightful opportunity to speak up. And I knew that these actions were commonplace enough within their communities that many of these men would not remember what they had done or who I was. Despite feeling unsafe in their gaze, I decided to defend them not only within the walls of Dwight Hall, but to the administration and anyone else who had written them off as inherently racist, sexist or outright evil.

Beyond hours of angry tears or passing glares, I haven’t done much to expose the misogyny and racism within fraternities at Yale. Through Dwight Hall, I have tried to give several of them a chance to do better by facilitating volunteer opportunities and encouraging and organizing service projects. Additional volunteering has occurred in a few fraternities, but others have completely ignored the offer, and the underlying hope of their betterment through service has failed. In light of recent accusations over the weekend, I have been forced to recommend a complete suspension

of Dwight Hall’s relationship with all fraternities because of the very same behavior I have worked so hard to look past.

Through sober and structured conversation, I have given myself an opportunity to take a closer look inside the minds and physical spaces that encourage rape culture. I can now say I am unsatisfied and disgusted with what I see.

Before today, you had not heard my story. Unfortunately, even after today, the stories of harassment that women of color choose to share will continue to be discounted, ignored and trivialized. Now, however, I am sharing something that is much more than a story.

IF YOU DO NOT CONDONE RACISM AND MISOGYNY, ESPECIALLY IN FRATERNITIES, SAY IT This is not simply an accusation. Make no mistake. This is a call to action.

Several of my classmates continue to defend brothers within these violently sexist and racist organizations by referencing their personal ignorance of the misogyny other women of color and I experience every day on this campus. I hope that my story — of a Black woman who gave Yale fraternities every chance to improve despite outstanding evidence that they are currently unwilling to do so — will cause all of you to reevaluate how you react to incidents of racism and sexism.

If you do not condone racism and misogyny, especially in fraternities, say it.

If you have enjoyed a fraternity party, but don’t agree with racist and misogynistic behavior, you are not alone; say it. If you are associated with Greek life through your friends or your own fraternity or sorority, it is your responsibility as a human being to publicly denounce inappropriate behavior from within organizations of which you are a part. Denounce the behavior, whether you choose to believe how or why it occurred. Those of us who have felt unsafe in a fraternity house are not interested in excuses or denials. We are only strengthened by your empathetic voices, and their impact on the opinions and behaviors of those around us.

I do not condone racism and misogyny, especially in fraternities. I said it. It’s now your turn.

BRIANA BURROUGHS is a junior in Berkeley College.

Contact her at briana.burroughs@yale.edu .

GUEST COLUMNIST MARISA LOWE

Keeping all doors open W

hen people ask me what I like about Yale, I almost always talk about the social scene. The diversity of social activities, the interesting people and the great friends I have made. A large factor in Yale’s social fabric is the openness of its parties. As a freshman, I attended social events in all kinds of settings — in dorms, at frats, social clubs like Fence, sports houses and residential college screws. This inclusivity is in stark contrast to many others schools, like Harvard and Princeton, where almost all parties have guest lists. As a Yale freshman, I felt the sense that I could go anywhere I wanted and be invited in at the door.

But for some, this is not the case. The accusations made

against Sigma Alpha Epsilon this weekend have pushed this conversation to the forefront. Not all Yale students feel welcome at all types of social events, and, at times, may feel discriminated against in certain settings. As someone who takes pride in the openness of Yale’s social culture, I find this most recent controversy especially concerning.

We should be doing as much as we can to make Yale a welcoming place to all students.

For the most part, SAE is a fixture of the open party culture at Yale. Whether or not you choose to attend their nearly weekly events, SAE consistently offers an open space for Yalies to mix with friends and meet new people. Over the past few years, SAE has faced more accusations of

misconduct at their door than other fraternities at Yale. They also, however, experience overcrowding more often than any other fraternity because of this commitment to openness. This is not to say that these accusations should be dismissed, but it is important to consider the pressures under which SAE serves as a host.

The scene at SAE last Friday night was hectic. SAE struggled to reject hoards of people from their doors due to capacity.

Their house was already packed with students and the police had already come by with a warning.

Occasionally, a girl or boy would manage to squeeze through the door, prompting one of the brothers to go inside to retrieve that person. The scene was what

one would expect of a frat party: intoxicated large crowds in a small space. It was not a scene I enjoyed, and it reminded me why I had not been to an SAE party this year. It was the kind of hectic, chaotic scene in which confusion was rampant.

This is not to refute the events that has reportedly occurred last Friday, but to provide context for the situation it may have occurred in.

SAE may not be a paragon of diversity. And if the accusations made against the organization are true, it warrants serious action from the Yale community. Whether or not the incident reported occurred, it is especially concerning that students at Yale do not feel comfortable in certain environments on the basis of

their appearance.

I also want to warn, however, against broad actions against Greek life without consideration of all consequences. The solution for Greek organizations is simple: stop throwing open parties.

I am afraid, however, that this will do more to segregate our community and less to encourage a diverse, open social environment for students. I do not want Yale to become a place where the only social events you can attend are those to which you receive a formal invitation. Especially as a freshman, it creates a situation in which those with pre-existing social connections are the only ones who can be social. I met some of my best friends here at Yale at open parties we both happened to wander into. Guest lists

provide even greater risk of discrimination. Yale’s organizations should all work toward creating a more inclusive environment with the awareness that prejudice of any form will not be tolerated.

So as we try to understand and respond to the accusations against SAE, let us not lose sight of the many things that make Yale’s social scene a source of pride for our school. Perhaps frat parties are not your preferred social setting. Perhaps they are. The important thing is that inclusive options exist for students in many forms.

MARISA LOWE is a junior in Pierson College. She is a former Production & Design editor on the Managing Board of 2016. Contact her at marisa.lowe@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

NEWS

“I have never thought about my sexuality being right or wrong. To me it has always been a case of finding the right person.”

GEORGE MICHAEL ENGLISH SINGER AND SONGWRITER

Long serving Af-Am professor celebrated

BY VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTER In celebration of Robert Stepto’s 40-year teaching career at Yale and his countless contributions to the Department of African American Studies, the department hosted a symposium on Friday at which around a dozen of Stepto’s former students paid tribute to their former professor and mentor.

Stepto’s former students spoke about their personal experiences under his tutelage, but, above all, they praised Stepto’s pioneering scholarship and mentorship as foundational in the growth of African-American studies across the nation and at Yale. In addition to celebrating the achievements of the long-serving professor, the symposium also shed light on the transformation of the University’s African American Studies Department, which was founded only a few years before Stepto’s arrival at Yale in 1974.

“I can’t think of anyone with his range of influence in the field as a teacher and mentor,” Brent Edwards ’90, an English and comparative literature professor at Columbia University and one of Stepto’s former students, told the News . “This is partly a statement about Yale’s historical importance in training generations of professors in African-American studies, but it is also a testament to Stepto’s own longevity and personal impact.”

Stepto’s other former students echoed Edwards, sharing anecdotes about how Stepto — who is currently on leave— shaped their own careers. Herman Beavers GRD ’90, the graduate and undergraduate chair of University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Africana Studies, said he was so sure he wanted to work with Stepto that he only applied to Yale for graduate school. Beavers said Stepto encouraged him to research writers who had not, at that time, received much scholarly attention. Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway said that although he was never Stepto’s student , a conversation with the professor about a research paper during his first year as a Ph.D. candidate helped spark his career as a scholar. Holloway said Stepto directed him to the topic of black scholarship at Howard University in the 1930s. This subject became the focus of the research paper Holloway was working on at the time, and ultimately his dissertation and first book.

“My professional scholarly career started with this conversation in Stepto’s office,” Holloway said. “He helped me set my agenda for the first 20 years of my career.”

Holloway added that Stepto was part of the generation of scholars that helped bring now-ubiquitous works by AfricanAmerican authors such as W.E.B. DuBois and Zora Neale Hurston back into print.

In addition to sharing anecdotes about time spent under Stepto’s mentorship, Stepto’s former students said his schol-

arship served as a guiding force for their careers. Speakers at Friday’s symposium emphasized the significance of Stepto’s most famous book, “From Behind the Veil,” which was published in 1979 and presents a study of Afro-American narratives.

“His book ‘From Behind the Veil’ was the most important critical study I read during my years at Yale, and I continue to make significant use of the book, 40 years later,” said Joseph Brown GRD ’84, Africana studies professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. “Because of his groundbreaking method of both reading the slave narratives and providing a context for how they should be foundational to the study of African-American and American literature, many of us who were his students owe him beyond measure.”

Several speakers, especially those who currently teach at Yale, also paid testament to Stepto as an administrator who helped build the Yale African American Studies Department in various capacities.

Since coming to the University, Stepto has served as the African American Studies Department’s director of undergraduate studies, its first director of graduate studies and as chair of African American studies. Yale’s African American Studies Department was established in 1968 and, at the start, offered only a bachelor’s degree. A decade later, Stepto helped design the Masters of Arts degree that was established in the department — the first of its kind in the United States.

Jacqueline Goldsby, the current chair of African American Studies, said the department’s graduate program was crucial for African-American studies at both Yale and the field at large because granting an advanced degree from an Ivy League institution helped stabilize and legitimize the field as a discipline. The program also helped create a stream of students who became leading academics in the profession, she said, many of whom spoke at Friday’s symposium.

“Put another way, Yale’s M.A. program effectively provided the intellectual infrastructure for the field’s growth into a mature academic discipline,” she said.

“Professor Stepto had a direct hand in shaping that effort.”

Another pivotal moment for the department came in 1993 when it established its Ph.D. track. Goldsby said then, too, Stepto played a crucial role and served as DGS for the first incoming classes.

Holloway said that during his own time as chair of the department, Stepto helped provide institutional memory.

“Senior faculty and staff are often called to be part of the ‘institutional memory’ of a school,” Brown said. “That is certainly Robert Stepto’s contribution to Yale University.”

Contact VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .

Sex and Sexuality Week returns

AGNES ENKHTAMIR/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Sex and Sexuality Week 2015 held nearly 20 events to promote a safe, healthy sexual climate on campus.

BY MONICA WANG STAFF REPORTER Sex and Sexuality Week — previously known as Sex Week — returned to campus after a two-year hiatus.

The 18 events over the course of the week focused on topics ranging from relationships to sex toys to help foster a more positive sexual climate on campus.

This year’s Sex and Sexuality Week aimed to “promote a sex-positive, safe and inclusive space for many kinds of intimacy, sex, love and relationships,” according to the program’s mission statement. Events began on Oct. 26 and conclude today and include a workshop on safe sex, a Master’s tea on gender identity and an art-making discussion about Asian-American sexuality. Greek organizations, the Black Student Alliance at Yale, the Asian American Cultural Center and the Women’s Center were among the groups that co-sponsored the week’s activities.

Organizers and participants interviewed cited the diversity, intersectionality and specificity of Sex and Sexuality Week events as a well-conceived platform for continued conversation.

“We have clubs, publications and advocacy groups on campus that are capable of creatively grappling with these topics,” said Katherine Fang ’17, executive director of Sex and Sexuality Week. “They were able to put together events that took seriously the cultural context — how this society views and shapes gender, faith, race and so much more — in which sex and sexuality is forged and continues to exist.”

Eliza Scruton ’17, who staffed Sex

and Sexuality Week, said that the past week of events served an educational purpose as well, especially in broadening students’ understandings of sexuality and providing information about the resources available on campus. Two such examples, Scruton said, included a Title IX trivia night and a table set up in the Commons Rotunda during lunch promoting STI testing at Yale Health. Scruton added that she found the intimate discussions among her peers to be some of her favorite events from the past week, as they encouraged attendees to share experiences from their personal lives in a safe, open and judgment-free environment.

Chloe Yee ’18 highlighted the extensive collaborations between various groups on campus as one of the past week’s hallmarks.

“There was a place for just about everyone in Sex and Sexuality Week,” Yee said. “Religious groups helped sponsor a workshop on relationships and faith at Yale, Greek organizations sponsored our STI testing party and cultural groups helped run discussions on race, ethnicity, culture and sexuality.”

“Desire, Beauty and the Asian Body” — a discussion held at the AACC on Saturday afternoon — was one such event led by Isra Syed ’16 and Hiral Doshi ’17, the AACC’s program series co-coordinators. Doshi said the AACC was asked to collaborate with Sex and Sexuality Week to help bring more diverse and cultural perspectives to the conversation in collaboration with the other cultural centers. Doshi added that Asian Americans often experience cases of hypersexualization and desexualiza-

tion on campus. In addition, many Asians have internalized the belief that their ethnicity is not as beautiful as the mainstream white identity, Doshi said.

Syed added the role that power plays in the particular experiences of different cultures has not been seriously considered in the past.

To help Asian-American students better navigate the sexual climate on campus, Syed said she believes it is important to bring marginalized groups to the fore. She cited the availability of spaces like the cultural centers for these group-specific discussions as a key reason for the past week’s success.

Scruton also emphasized the nontraditional perspectives introduced at workshops such as “The Safest Sex: Sex Toys and Masturbation.”

Growing up, many students receive formal sexual education, Scruton said, but not that many learn about sexual pleasure and how to achieve it.

Fang said one week of programming is not enough to capture all approaches students take to sex and sexuality. Still, she and other organizers are hopeful that the past week will spark further discussions and developments on campus.

“Despite the ugly truths that we prefer to turn a blind eye toward, there is much need for improvement in our sexual climate on campus,” Yee said.

The last Sex and Sexuality Week 2015 event is the STI Testing Party from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. today at Yale Health, where clinicians will provide free STI testing and consultation.

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

Clean election lawsuits continue TIMELINE CAMPAIGN FINANCE LITIGATION

2005: Citizens’ Election Program adopted.

2008: Citizens’ Election Program instituted.

June 18, 2014: SEEC (State Elections Enforcement Commission) May 30, 2014: Malloy’s campaign declares Malloy qualified for Cep applies for CEP funding. money.

October 17, 2014: SEEC receives complaint from Jerry Labiola—then chair of the CT Republican Party.

May 28, 2015: DSCC receives June 15, 2015: investigatory DSCC refuses to subpoena from SEEC. comply with subpoena.

MERT DILEK/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

BY SARA SEYMOUR STAFF REPORTER A Superior Court hearing to determine whether the State Elections Enforcement Committee can subpoena Connecticut’s Democratic Party to investigate the legality of Gov. Dannell Malloy’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign adjourned before all evidence was heard last Thursday, leaving the future of state campaign finance reform laws still pending. David Golub, the Democratic State Central Committee’s lawyer, will present this argument before Superior Judge Antonio Robaina on Nov. 17, when the hearing is scheduled to continue.

Though the federal branches of political parties are allowed to receive funding from state contractors, Connecticut’s Clean

Election laws prohibit state parties that register as publicly financed campaigns from doing the same. Former Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola alleged last October that Malloy’s campaign received state contractor funding illegally, an accusation that, if true, would mean Malloy’s campaign violated the Clean Election laws. Malloy, whose campaign received $6.5 million through its status as a publicly funded campaign, would owe the state the same sum if the Democrats were found in violation of the law.

The SEEC took the state Democrats to court in May after the party refused to disclose financial statements and campaign emails that could confirm whether Malloy illegally received funding from state contractors

by accepting money the contractors donated to the federal Democratic Party. The SEEC’s lawsuit is countered by a suit from the Democratic State Central Committee, which argues that the SEEC does not have the purview to investigate the committee’s use of federal campaign funds. In fact, members of the DSCC said they used federal funds to disseminate material encouraging people to vote.

Golub, the attorney for the DSCC, said in an Oct. 8 motion to quash the subpoena that the 1971 Federal Election Act — which requires state candidates to use federal funding if they choose to disseminate materials encouraging people to vote — supersedes state Clean Election laws that bar state candidates from using federal funding altogether. Golub told the News the

money given by state contractors was used only to pay for federal expenses .

Experts following the case have noted that if the Democratic Party successfully quashes the SEEC’s subpoena, it will decrease the power of Connecticut’s Clean Elections laws .

“If in fact [the Democrats] win their suit it’s going to result in a more fluid system of money and probably a movement of money that is more difficult to follow,” said Gary Rose, chair of the Department of Government, Politics and Global Studies at Sacred Heart University.

Josh Foley, a SEEC staff attorney, declined to comment on the investigation because it is still ongoing.

Maura Osborne, assistant attorney general and SEEC attorney, filed a memorandum in

support of the subpoena on Oct. 26, arguing the DSCC’s attempt to block the SEEC’s investigation is based on the false belief that the SEEC does not have any real investigative authority. In fact, she said, the body has nearly 40 years of experience investigating campaign finance law violations.

“Even more potentially damaging to the SEEC’s oversight powers — and therefore the integrity of Connecticut’s state elections — is the DSCC’s assertion that a relatively inconsequential provision of federal campaign finance law, which regulates a small subset of voter outreach communication in federal elections, operates as an impenetrable shield to prevent any state investigation of state party or state candidate conduct whenever invoked by a party,” Osborne’s memorandum read.

Cheri Quickmire, the Connecticut executive director of Common Cause — a nonpartisan grass-roots organization that advocates for issues such as campaign finance reform — said the SEEC definitively has the power to issue a subpoena, adding that the Democrats’ refusal to comply is problematic.

In the memorandum, Osborne also wrote that Connecticut has a long history of corruption in state government. “[Connecticut is] a state that used to pride itself on being really pristine in its politics … and then all the blight happened at once,” Rose said. “I thought we’d gotten over it perhaps, but it looks like maybe we haven’t.”

The SEEC was created in 1974.

Contact SARA SEYMOUR at sara.seymour@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT Ward 1 campaigns come to a close ELECTION FROM PAGE 1 greeted students at an event on Cross Campus Friday, where they displayed campaign postcards filled out by over 600 students. Over the last month, Eidelson volunteers collected the cards, which contain student demands for action from Yale to improve the circumstances of students and New Haven residents alike. Volunteers pasted the cards onto large cardboard letters that read “New Haven,” which they displayed on Cross Campus.

I wouldn’t call [the posters] negative [campaigning,]. I think it’s just a statement of fact. For us, it’s important that voters are informed of all relevant facts going into the issues.

UGONNA EZE ’16 Ward 1 Alder Candiate

The most common demands on the postcards included eliminating the student income contribution, divesting the endowment from fossil fuels and hiring more New Haven residents, Eidelson said during the event.

Eidelson said throughout her campaign that her team has emphasized the importance of forging connections between students and New Haven outside of Ward 1.

“This campaign is not about just voting on Tuesday,” she said. “It’s about committing to making the kind of New Haven in which we want to live.”

Yale College Democrats Vice President Jacob Wasserman ’16 said the postcard campaign has attracted a diverse group of respondents, noting that even some members of Eze’s campaign team have filled them out.

Eze’s posters, which appeared around campus late last week, contain statements criticizing Eidelson’s campaign and quotations alleging that she has been absent on campus.

“You only see Sarah during an elec-

tion year between the months of April and November. That’s just a fact,” read a statement from Eidelson’s former treasurer Sterling Johnson ’15 on one of Eze’s posters.

The State Elections Enforcement Commission’s investigation into alleged violations of election law by Eidelson’s team during the primary has also provided fodder for Eze’s campaign. One poster states that, while Eidelson is under investigation, Eze is not.

Eze has held numerous events in recent days. He distributed fried chicken from Popeye’s in Bass Library Sunday night, and his campaign gave out hot chocolate and bagels on Beinecke Plaza Monday.

“I wouldn’t call [the posters] negative [campaigning,]” Eze said Monday. “I think it’s just a statement of fact.

For us, it’s important that voters are informed of all relevant facts going into the issues.”

Eidelson said Monday night she will be at the polls all day Tuesday, talking to voters before they cast their ballots while her volunteers go door to door in the residential colleges. She added that her volunteers will encourage voters to come out not only to vote for her, but also for Mayor Toni Harp.

Unlike Eidelson’s campaign, which ran an extensive canvassing operation before September’s primary and will canvass across campus Tuesday, Eze and his team will not go door to door on Election Day. Eze said he has heard complaints about Eidelson’s canvassers, adding that his campaign has attempted to avoid “the tactics of intimidation and harassment Sarah’s been using the last few weeks.”

This type of field operation is meant to avoid being perceived as “overly aggressive,” Mollie Johnson said.

Eze’s joint campaign manager Amalia Halikias ’15 said the campaign will rely on an “organic approach” of encouraging voters to talk to their friends. She said campaign volunteers will call their friends throughout the day and encourage them to spread the word.

Voters can cast their ballots today at the New Haven Free Public Library from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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

“Leadership is not about the next election, it’s about the next generation.”

SIMON SINEK BRITISH AUTHOR AND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER

University to investigate claims against SAE SAE FROM PAGE 1 Burgwell Howard said he has been in contact with six to eight students who were present for the incident in question, and he is working to find out what happened. Howard said he has also been meeting with residential college deans, freshman counselors and Yale SAE leaders, who are conducting their own investigation.

“If this did happen, and it sounds as if it may [have] — and I’m looking for confirmation on that — what do we do?” Howard said. “If there is a violation of policy, then that would be something that we would refer to the Executive Committee, like any other violation of University policy.”

Howard added, however, that there are challenges associated with putting University sanctions on a group that officially operates independently of the University, even if many Yale students are a part of it. In February, Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway announced that SAE would be banned from campus until August 2016 for violating the University’s sexual harassment policies. Holloway declined to comment on the recent allegations against SAE , though he said his office is looking into the matter.

Sofia Petros-Gouin, a freshman at Columbia University who visited Yale Friday night, said she was outside the SAE house between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. and witnessed a white fraternity member put his hand out to block a group of predominantly black and Hispanic girls from entering. Petros-Gouin said she heard the brother say, “No, we’re only looking for white girls.”

She said the brother then singled out a blonde girl at the bottom of the stairs and said, “That’s what we’re looking for.” He then allowed a group of white girls to enter the party, Petros-Gouin alleged.

Though Yale SAE President Grant Mueller ’17 denied that these events took place, he did describe one racially charged incident and noted that Petros-Gouin could have been mistaking this encounter for the scene she described.

Mueller noted that three SAE members — one Caucasian, one black and one Costa Rican — were manning the front door to the fraternity all night.

“We know at one point the broth-

ers at the door had someone come up to the door, try to get in and she loudly said, ‘It’s ‘cause I’m black,’ [that she was not admitted],” Mueller said. “I believe, according to the brothers who were there at the time, she went downstairs to the sidewalk to a group of students and repeated, ‘They’re not letting black girls in.’ It’s possible that was the same incident, but again nothing was actually said to her along those lines that she can’t come in because she’s black.”

One of the doormen, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Mueller’s account.

Mueller also said that during the time frame Petros-Gouin described, the fraternity would have had no reason to turn her away because there were very few people inside the house.

Furthermore, the police were outside the house from 11:20 p.m. to around midnight, during which time Mueller said he instructed the doormen not to let anyone in and to clear the porch. He added that he held individual meetings with every member of SAE, and that no brothers described an incident similar to the one Petros-Gouin recounted.

A white female student who attended the party and asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue said the attendees were racially diverse. She added that when she arrived at the party sometime after midnight, the doormen were not letting any more students in, but she was let in after she called a friend in the fraternity to come get her at the door.

“I walked in with a woman of color, but I don’t particularly remember if there were many other students of color there or not,” another attendee, who asked to remain anonymous for the same reason, told the News.

Additionally, on Monday the Post quoted a male Yale student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from fraternity members, stating that he tried to enter the party sometime after midnight but was stopped at the door while his female friends were let in.

“When I first came up to the door they said, ‘Who the [expletive] do you think you are — you’re clearly gay,’” he told the Post.

The student told the Post he was concerned about friends inside the party who had too much to drink and attempted to follow a different group

of friends into the party but fraternity members pulled him back by his hair and arm. In the 20 minutes he spent on the steps outside, he said, a white fraternity member shouted, “White girls only. We’re only looking for white girls.” He said the same brother then physically pushed an African-American female away from the door.

Mueller said a student did try to force his way into the party by pushing over the Costa Rican doorman, but the doorman then stood up and asked him to leave. Mueller said at that point SAE was not letting in any more students as per instructions from Yale Police. Mueller told the News that the New Haven Police had also visited the house earlier that night, warning that SAE would receive citations for an overly crowded and noisy party.

SAE’s national headquarters released a statement Monday addressing the allegations and stating that based on preliminary information the organization has received, fraternity members stopped admitting guests to the house after receiving a noise complaint from the New Haven Police Department about the party.

When asked for specific details about the incident, SAE’s national spokesman Brandon Weghorst declined to answer any further questions and referred to the official statement.

“Our chapter at Yale University is comprised of a diverse group of students, and similarly, the social event included a diverse number of attendees,” the statement said. “However, we will continue to investigate this allegation to determine additional information.”

In light of the weekend’s events, Mueller said he and other brothers will attend an open forum hosted at the Afro-American Cultural Center on Wednesday to discuss the experiences of students of color and the protection of freedom of speech. The forum will be moderated by administrators on the Intercultural Affairs Committee and is titled “[Ad]dressing Appropriation and the Power of Language.” Mueller added that he has also discussed Friday’s events with Githere.

The national organization of SAE was founded in 1856.

Contact JON VICTOR at jon.victor@yale.edu and JOEY YE at shuaijiang.ye@yale.edu.

Med school revenues grow despite national decline INCOME FROM PAGE 1 port an increasing percentage of their budget to do research from internal sources.”

Alpern went on to say that the national budget is the largest threat to the University obtaining enough research funding in the future. It is unclear how much “discretionary funding” — congressional funding not mandated by law through which science research and development is largely funded — will be allocated to the NIH because of congressional disagreement between Republicans and Democrats, he added. According to Alpern, the NIH has not kept up with national inflation for about 10 years, causing a shortage of research funding at both the

School of Medicine and at Yale College.

“Funding for health care and research in the United States remains under pressure, and Yale will need to adapt,” wrote Yale’s Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Finance Stephen Murphy ’87 in this year’s annual report. Income from medical services is the second largest source of the University’s income after the endowment.

Yale relies heavily on federal grants, applied for by Yale professors and physicians, to fund research. The sum of federal grants given to Yale last year was $507.1 million — or 75.3 percent of all Yale’s grant and contract income in 2015.

But despite national stagna-

tion in federal funding, Yale’s income from medical services remains strong. The 2015 financial report found that the income from medical services grew by over $87 million from last year.

This growth in medical school income contributed $786.5 million to Yale’s overall operating budget, increasing it by 5.8 percent. Medical school administrators interviewed attributed this growth to more faculty hiring and an increased demand for medical services from the New Haven community.

“Medical services income and faculty salaries were significantly higher than the prior year, as the School of Medicine’s clinical practice continued to grow at a rapid pace,” Murphy said.

The income generated by

the medical school was significantly higher in 2015 than in 2014, Murphy said. This revenue increased in part because of a growth in the clinical practices of Yale physicians, Murphy added. He continued on to say that the number of faculty and staff at the medical school has increased in recent years, with more faculty entering research positions and more staff going to clinics and labs.

Approximately 150 new physicians joined the Yale Medical Group in fiscal year 2014 and 72 new faculty members were hired in fiscal year 2015, resulting in higher clinical volumes.

“Most of the academic medical centers are doing quite well.

Our trend is not different from other medical centers,” Alpern

added. “As we say, it’s the best year we’ve ever had, but we’re really worried about next year.”

Alpern said that the School of Medicine’s performance with regard to medical services was somewhat in parallel with the national trend. He said that academic medical centers, such as Yale, tend to provide a higher quality product at a higher price and as a result were favored by patients with the resources to choose. The largest source of medical service income by far at Yale is the School of Medicine’s Yale Medical Group, one of the largest academic and medical practices in the country and the largest in Connecticut.

Because YMG’s recruitment of physicians was directly proportional to patient demand and

not the result of policy decisions from the medical school dean’s office, the growth of physicians and the resulting income would eventually slow, Alpern said.

“The question is whether we will be able to keep growing,” Alpern said. “At some point … we will be seeing all the patients.

I don’t think we’re there, but we may be soon … Connecticut is not a state where the population is growing.”

The School of Medicine, which is the largest professional school at Yale, received 5 percent of the University’s capital spending last year.

Contact PADDY GAVIN at paddy.gavin@yale.edu and FINNEGAN SCHICK at christopher.schick@yale.edu .

OPERA SCENES

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

NEWS

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”

GEORGE ELIOT ENGLISH NOVELIST AND JOURNALIST

Exhibit honors deceased migrants

Yale unveils new website

BY MELINA DELGADO CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

REBECCA KARABUS/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

A weeklong exhibit hosted by Latino Modern Avant-Garde celebrates the Day of the Dead.

BY REBECCA KARABUS STAFF REPORTER Latino Modern Avant-Garde, a group of three New Haven-based Latino artists, launched a weeklong exhibit Monday that honors migrants who died trying to cross the border into the United States from Mexico.

The exhibit, which is being hosted

by Unidad Latina En Accion, a New Haven-based immigrants’ rights group, is part of ULA’s celebration of the Day of the Dead, a holiday that families in some Latin American countries spend remembering the lives of deceased relatives.

ULA has been building an altar to celebrate the Day of the Dead since 2006. In 2011, the group added a parade through Fair Haven — an Elm City neighborhood with a large immigrant population — to honor deceased migrants at their celebrations. But Saturday’s march was in solidarity with victims of injustice nationwide, ULA volunteer Megan Fountain ’07 said, noting that this change was the product of the parade evolving through time.

“People think Fair Haven is a dangerous neighborhood, so we try to show a different side of the neighborhood — that it’s a place where people live and make art,” Fountain said. “We’re trying to take back the streets and bring

music, art and joy to the community.”

Israel Sánchez, one of three artists whose work is on display in the Latino Modern Avant-Garde exhibit, said Fair Haven is a misunderstood community. He said many New Haven residents think the majority of people in Fair Haven are poor because few residents complete high school. In reality, he said, some of the neighborhood’s residents do not complete school so they can begin to earn money sooner and because their parents and grandparents did the same.

He added that Latino Modern AvantGarde’s goal is to promote Latino art in the community and eventually incorporate the work of immigrant artists who live beyond the city’s borders.

Fountain said New Haven does not have institutions, such as a Latino museum, that promote Latin American culture. She said children of immigrants who go to school in New Haven have no way to formally learn about their parents’ culture.

She added that New Haven Public Schools celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, but Latino culture is not synonymous with Hispanic culture.

Rather, it incorporates Native American, “indigenous” and African cultural influences.

“There’s a real ignorance among the teachers in the public schools about

Latino heritage,” Fountain said. “The superintendent never talks about how we should be teaching children about different cultures; he just wants more standardized tests.”

Joel Celi, a construction worker from Ecuador who is also part of Latino Modern Avant-Garde, said he hopes to defy negative stereotypes of Latin American immigrants through his art.

Though he is not a professional artist, he said he has used his instincts to inspire the art he creates since he was a child.

“I want to inspire … other Latinos and show people that we’re not just workers; that we are artists,” Celi said.

John Lugo, a founding member of ULA, said Latino Modern Avant-Garde has already inspired some young community members — including Luis Miguel, a 10th grader at Wilbur Cross High School — to pursue art as a potential vocation. He said many Latino immigrants work several jobs and do not have the time or resources to create art, adding that this contributes to why Latino Modern Avant-Garde’s promotion of Latino culture is so important.

Latino Modern Avant-Garde has hosted four exhibits since its inception last year.

Contact REBECCA KARABUS at rebecca.karabus@yale.edu .

Yale’s website just got a major facelift.

For the first time in nine years, Yale University has launched a new design for “Yale.edu.” The updated site, which was conceived by Fastspot — a design agency headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland — was launched on Oct. 19 and features larger font, greater interactivity and spotlight stories on the home page.

Andrea MacAdam, director of interactive media and strategy in Yale’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications, noted that the last major redesign of Yale.edu happened in 2006. She said an update was necessary both aesthetically and practically, as the old website appeared very outdated and did not convey the institutional image that Yale wishes to project.

“We also wanted it to be appealing and useful to the many audiences who visit the site, including the current Yale community of students, faculty and staff, alumni and friends of the University and the public at large,” MacAdam said.

On Yale’s old website, the small text, fixed width layouts and clunky interactivity hindered the user’s experience and impression of Yale, according to Fastspot President Tracey Halvorsen.

The website also did not transfer well to mobile platforms. Halvorsen added that her company wanted to make sure the new website represented the Yale identity. For example, in order to convey that Yale has been at the “forefront of exploration, innovation and creativity,” Fastspot made sure that stories about campus life took center stage on the new site, she said.

The new website has particular elements that contribute to Yale’s brand.

Halvorsen said the branding criteria were explicit, such as the logo, the “Yale Blue” color and the font. Since Yale has such a highly regarded brand, Fastspot had little room to stray from Yale’s strict

guidelines, she said, adding that the entire website was designed to mirror the prestige that many associate with Yale.

“For example, the site header feels spacious [with] lots of white space, and to some that may convey prestigiousness [or] confidence,” Halvorsen explained.

Other design considerations Fastspot prioritized included putting logos in the upper left-hand corner, due to Western reading patterns, and choosing color relationships that felt “accessible” to readers, she added. The code of the site also had to be improved, MacAdam said.

The site’s audience is large and includes alumni, current students and the general public. But MacAdam said one of the site’s most important audiences is prospective students. Maria Camila Bernal, an applicant to Yale’s class of 2020, said that Yale’s organized storytelling message came through in the new design.

“I really like the part toward the bottom that says ‘A closer look for the curious,’ since it lets you explore the different parts of the University,” Bernal said.

That segment is designed to showcase various places, experiences and events on campus that might typically be more difficult to find from a home page.

While the new website has impressed prospective students, some current students still expressed complaints. For example, although the home page has been revamped, many other pages of the Yale site have not changed, including pages relevant to current students.

When asked about the website redesign, Linette Rivera ’19 said the pages she finds most useful have not improved.

“I guess I like it,” she said. “The stuff I really need — residential colleges, cultural centers, [room] reservation system — is in the old annoying format.”

Fastspot began work on the website redesign in 2014.

Contact MELINA DELGADO at melina.delgado@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT YLS students’ illness investigated LAW SCHOOL FROM PAGE 1 eral law students to the illness.

Some students speculated that the emergence of disease could be the result of food poisoning.

“Most, but not all, of [the first-year students who experienced symptoms] ate sandwiches catered by the dining hall during Tuesday lunch events,” one first-year student wrote in the email exchange. “That’s all that I know. Nothing in this email should be construed to imply a causal theory for students’ experiences.”

[The fact] that we haven’t had any additional reports of illness over the weekend leads me to believe that we have done very good job in containing [the infection].

MARIA BOUFFARD Director of Emergency Management Administrators at the school said it is too early to tell what may have caused the illness. It remains under investigation.

In his Friday email, Post referred to the illness as “a suspected occurrence of a norovirus” — a highly contagious gastrointestinal infection whose symptoms include vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhea. He added that tests at Yale Health to identify the illness are ongoing.

“Public areas of the law school, including those in Baker Hall, have been sanitized follow-

ing guidelines provided by the city department of health and Yale Health Services, and that deep cleaning process has continued over the weekend,” Post wrote in the Sunday email.

Representatives from Yale Health did not respond to several requests for comment.

Maria Bouffard, director of emergency management at Yale, said the illness has not yet been identified and that the exact number of infected students is only known by Yale Health officials. She added that no new cases of infection were reported this past weekend. “[The fact] that we haven’t had any additional reports of illness over the weekend leads me to believe that we have done very good job in containing [the infection],” Bouffard said.

Conroy said the school could not tell the exact number of students who fell ill, as it is possible that some sick students did not report their illness or visit Yale Health.

In an email to the News, Francis estimated that over 30 firstyear students have been affected by the outbreak and that a number of second- and third-year law students have likely also been impacted.

Francis said she had heard of others getting sick since the first wave of infection last Wednesday and Thursday, adding that she was pleased by the response of the law school administration to the situation.

University administrators alerted graduate and professional students by email to a norovirus-like illness with similar symptoms in February 2013.

Contact PADDY GAVIN at paddy.gavin@yale.edu

“Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.” MARILYN MONROE AMERICAN ACTRESS AND MODEL

Yale-NUS lacks sexual health resources YALE-NUS FROM PAGE 1 local laws and resources, as well as Speak About It, a U.S.based organization that works in campus consent education to acquaint community members with the types of issues that can arise in a residential college.

Just as Yale’s CCEs offer the “Myth of Miscommunication” workshop for freshmen during Camp Yale, staff from YaleNUS’ Office of the Dean of Students organize a compulsory workshop on consent and communication for all incoming freshmen. Although YaleNUS does not mandate workshops for upperclassman like Yale does, it offers optional bystander training to leaders of student groups, members of athletic teams and students interested in organizing social events.

And while the college’s Wellness Center does not exclusively focus on sexual health, it does provide counseling and therapy for students who face emotional and psychological stress as a result of sex-related issues, said Yeo Sha-en, senior manager of wellness in the Office of the Dean of Students and wellness director of the Wellness Center. The Center also organizes mandatory oneon-one sessions with every freshman and optional walk-in sessions during which students can talk about any issue related to their well-being, including sexual health, Yeo added. Still, her work also includes other aspects of student wellness including sleeping enough, eating well, managing expectations, gender and identity issues and spirituality.

According to an August article in the Straits Times, Singapore’s leading newspaper, there was a 60 percent rise in the number of sexual crimes filed

YALE DAILY NEWS

Yale-NUS has yet to establish resources devoted specifically to sexual health. or convicted in State Courts between 2011 and 2014. But neither Yek nor Yeo expressed concerns about the fact that their work is not focused exclusively on sexual health or sexual misconduct. Daryl Yang YNUS ’18, president of The G Spot — a student organization tackling issues concerning sexuality, gender, feminism, race, social class and disability — also noted that sexual misconduct is “not a big concern” on campus. The efforts by administrators and students are more proactive than reactive, he added. G Spot is the only student organization at Yale-NUS that deals with sexual issues.

This week, The G Spot is partnering with other YaleNUS student organizations that are not dedicated purely to sexual health, such as peer counselors, as well as external community groups and the Health and Wellness Works team on “Doing it Right.” This series of conversations address issues of sexual health, sexual assault prevention, female sexuality and sex work.

Yang said there is more to be done to enhance the campus sexual climate, but he did not identify any specific areas of improvement. He also pointed out that Yale-NUS, as compared to its peer institutions in

Singapore, is at the forefront of fostering a healthy sexual climate. The fact that Yale-NUS, unlike other schools in Singapore, makes condoms available at several locations on campus to encourage safer sex is indicative of such efforts, he said.

“Our institution is only in the third year, [and] I think it is commendable the efforts that the college, on both the part of students and administrators, alike have put in to create a safe and open climate with regard to issues of sex and sexual wellness,” Yang said.

Contact QI XU at qi.xu@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 9

NEWS

“The Smithsonian museums are among this country’s most endearing treasures.”

XAVIER BECERRA CALIFORNIA HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE

Yale, Smithsonian to collaborate

BY LAURA PLATA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Two weeks ago, representatives from Yale and the Smithsonian Institution met to discuss a University-wide collaboration on research projects and exchange programs for faculty, curators and graduate and undergraduate students. Coordinators said they hope the collaboration will help both institutions maximize research potential in the areas of study the other specializes in.

Yale and the Smithsonian hold similar missions — the University’s mission is the collection, preservation and dissemination of knowledge, among others, an objective the Smithsonian accomplishes through the careful curation of restored artifacts, said Pamela Schirmeister, the dean of strategic initiatives for Yale College, the Graduate School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In addition, the reach of the Smithsonian — with its many media channels, countless visitors per year and significant influence on international debates — will pair well with Yale students looking for opportunities to get involved with the public humanities and benefit from a high level of cutting edge research, said Cyra Levenson, curator of education and academic outreach at the Yale Center for British Art. “I feel pretty confident we are going to be able to grow this partnership and it’s going to be an enormous benefit between Yale and the Smithsonian at every level from undergrad to faculty,” Schirmeister said.

The Smithsonian owns an estimated 138 million objects. While Yale has a vast collection as well , it is not nearly as varied. Through the collaboration, Yale personnel may now do research on all the material in the Smithsonian’s many museums. Because the vast majority of the museum’s artifacts are never put on exhibit, this collaboration makes available artifacts that might never have been seen otherwise.

The collaboration will have four areas of focus: the preservation of cul-

tural heritage in inhospitable environments, digital and public humanities, race and diversity and the environment and planet.

Students also stand to benefit from Smithsonian leaders, who will visit Yale’s campus in the coming months. For example, Levenson and Anne Underhill, professor of anthropology and curator for the Peabody Museum, who are teaching a course this semester called “Landscapes for Meaning: Museums and their Objects” will host the director of the National Museum for African-American Culture on campus this December.

Levenson said her students are excited to learn from leaders in the field and have the opportunity to apply their learning to real-world situations, adding that she expects that opportunities like this will come more often in the future.

“I think it’s a matter of staying in tune to how this relationship can benefit constituents of both institutions and how ultimately we can make cutting-edge research and knowledge available within the public discourse on an international scale,” Levenson said.

In April, Yale will be hosting the 2016 Global Colloquium of University Presidents — an annual meeting of international university presidents and vice chancellors to discuss global public policy problems through research and teaching. Allison Coleman, director of communications for the Office of the President, said the summit exemplifies the type of concerns that underlie the partnership between the Smithsonian and Yale.

“The focus of this year’s program is ‘Preservation of Cultural Heritage: Challenges and Strategies,’ and there are a number of planning activities being undertaken by members of the Yale campus community and the participating universities leading up to the colloquium itself,” Coleman said.

The Smithsonian Institution was established in 1846.

Contact LAURA PLATA at laura.plata@yale.edu .

Four professors elected to NAM

BY ELLEN KAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Oct. 19, four professors of the Yale School of Medicine — Ronald Duman, Murat Günel, David McCormick and Laura Niklason — joined the ranks of the National Academy of Medicine.

Becoming a member of the NAM, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is one of the highest honors for a health and medicine expert, said Robert Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, who is also a member of the NAM. The four join a group currently composed of 1,826 active members, 46 of whom are members of the Yale faculty, of whom 40 work at the School of Medicine.

“When a faculty member gets into the NAM, it makes a statement that they’re really at the top of their field,” Alpern said. “It’s really the most prestigious organization in the field of medicine.”

This year’s figure is an impressive one. Only 80 academics were elected, and according to Alpern, Yale typically only sees one to two electees per year.

The election process is selective and requires evaluation over several months, according to William Kearney, director of media relations for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. For the initial nomination, support from at least two current NAM members who are familiar with a candidate’s work is required.

Each candidate’s qualifications are then reviewed by NAM members in the same area of expertise. After discussion and straw polls, a committee tallies the final votes from each section and puts together a final ballot for the entire academy to vote on.

Duman, who is a psychiatry and neurobiology professor, was recognized for his studies of the brain and psychiatric illness and treatment. His research involves elucidating the mechanisms of antidepressants at molecular and cellular levels, which Duman said are a key achievement and hallmark of his lab’s work. Duman was nominated by Yale Department of Psychiatry Chairman John Krystal, who described his work

COURTESY OF YALE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

From left to right: David McCormick, Laura Niklason, Murat Günel, Ronald Duman as “trailblazing throughout his professional career.”

Günel, a genetics and neurobiology professor and the director of the YaleNew Haven Hospital’s Department of Neurosurgery, runs an active practice in addition to performing “cutting-edge research” on the genetics of neurological diseases, Alpern said. He added that balancing and combing these two professional pursuits is “an amazing talent.” Günel’s genetics research focuses on generating hypotheses to understand the root cause of diseases, a process that allows for personalized patient treatment.

“Putting all of our efforts into understanding these diseases at a very fundamental level leads to new mechanistic insight, which then are now translating into new therapies,” Günel said. “That sort of persistence and going deep is what I’m most proud of.”

McCormick, a neuroscience professor, conducts research in basic neuroscience. His work delves into the cellular and network mechanisms of the brain, answering questions such as what happens to the brain during epileptic seizures and how the brain controls arousal and attention. Pasko Rakic, McCormick’s nominator and a neurology and neurobiology professor, said McCormick is one of the most often cited scientists in his field, calling that honor objective evidence of the importance of his work.

Niklason, another new NAM member, is an anesthesiology and biomedical engineering professor. Alpern said Niklason’s engineering background is important in allowing her to actually develop her research into physical results. Niklason primarily works on

arterial engineering and lung regeneration. She said that she is particularly proud of the progress her lab has made on arterial engineering, from developing initial concepts to completing recent clinical trials. Going forward, she said she is excited about the potential of cell therapy to treat lung disease.

The NAM is responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the federal government on health policy and management, but members can choose how involved they want to be in the academy’s program activities.

Niklason said she looks forward to actively contributing to “the ongoing dialogue at the national level” of health and science policy, which she cites as her long-term interest. Likewise, McCormick views his election to the academy as not only recognition of his work, but also an opportunity to make lasting contributions.

“I’ve been extremely lucky and fortunate to be a scientist, to have a productive career,” McCormick said. “I very much look forward to being able to use [my membership] as a new avenue to participate in something that’s beneficial to the U.S. and the world at large.”

Duman said he anticipates adding his expertise to analyses of psychiatric illnesses and new antidepressant agents.

Günel said he also hopes that the NAM will allow him to move beyond his work as an academic and expand his interest in promoting human rights in addition to human health and education.

The NAM was formerly known as the Institute of Medicine.

Contact ELLEN KAN at ellen.kan@yale.edu .

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PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I love running cross country … On a track I feel like a hamster.”

ROBIN WILLIAMS COMEDIAN AND HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY RUNNER

Bulldogs exceed expectations CROSS COUNTRY FROM PAGE 14 tively. Atkinson’s 22:03.7 time in the 6,000-meter race was an improvement of almost a minute from her first race at Van Cortlandt Park earlier this season, when she posted a time of 23:00.7 in the Sept. 19 Iona Meet of Champions. However, Heps may have been Atkinson’s last race of the season, as she suffered a stress fracture in the last leg of the race.

Finishing 45 seconds behind Yale leader Schmiede, Meredith Rizzo ’17 ran the course in 22:10.9, putting her in 28th place to round out the Bulldog scorers. “[We had] a lot of really impressive runs,” Atkinson said.

“Frances and Dana ran the whole race step-and-step with each other, [and] Meredith Rizzo really stepped up. The team has a lot more [successful races to come] by doing what we’ve been doing.”

For the men, an impressive team performance was highlighted by a second-place overall finish by captain Kevin Dooney ’16 in a field of 86 athletes. Crossing the finish of the five-mile course in just 24:29.5, Dooney was only three seconds behind the winner of the race, Penn’s Thomas Awad, who took the title for the second consecutive year. Dooney shaved three seconds off his mile pace from his fifth-place finish in the same meet in 2014.

Following Dooney was teammate James Randon ’17, who kept close to Dooney for the majority of the race and finished just seven seconds behind in 24:36.7, good for fifth overall. Yale was the only team in the race to place two runners in the top five.

Heps proved to be a major showing of progress for Adam Houston ’18, the third Bulldog to make it to the finish. At the 2.1-kilometer split, Houston ranked 45th in the field with a time of 6:11. Over the course of the remaining kilometers, he passed

28 runners, pushing him into 17th place, a key performance for Yale.

Duncan Tomlin ’16 and Cameron Stanish ’18 rounded out the scoring portion of the squad with respective 25th- and 26thplace finishes, giving the squad 75 points — a 48-point improvement over last season, and just six more than Penn and 10 more than meet champion Columbia.

“We ran phenomenally well,” Dooney said. “We worked our way through the pack. We all managed to pick up key spots in the last 900 meters. To see everyone come through when it mattered was really a big thing for us.”

The race marked impressive improvement for the Yale men, who placed behind Ivy competitors Cornell, Princeton and Dartmouth earlier in the season but managed to outrank all three on Friday.

With such positive performances this past weekend, both teams are hoping to build on their momentum before heading to the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships on Nov. 13.

Dooney said he believes achieving a bid to the NCAA National Championship — which requires being one of the top two teams in the region — is possible, although a victory over Columbia, Friday’s champion, will be key. The women are also hoping for another big race to keep their season alive, but are proud of their progress.

“It’s important to note that this is just the start of good things to come,” Atkinson said. “The team is really going to develop from here, and in future years Princeton will be our rivals. We will be there to win next year.”

The Elis have raced at Franklin Park, the course of the NCAA Northeast Regionals, twice already this season.

COURTESY OF THOMAS GMÜR

Men’s runner Duncan Tomlin ’16 finished 25th overall with a time of 25:25.2.

RACE SNAPSHOT THE IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS WOMEN’S (6K)

80

YALE SCORERS

Contact HOPE ALLCHIN at hope.allchin@yale.edu .

Meredith Rizzo ’17 – 28th place Ellie Atkinson ’19 – 22nd place Kelli Reagan ’17 – 18th place Dana Klein ’18 – 8th place Frances Schmiede ’17 – 7th place

was still happy with the team’s overall fall season.

“We have identified the areas that we need to work on and are looking forward to winter training in the coming months,” Trzybinski said.

“We can look back on a successful fall season and are in a good position for going into the spring.”

With a few weeks left before the harsh New England winter moves training indoors, the senior leader noted the importance of taking advantage of the current weather.

He mentioned that the team’s focus will be on improving its strength and endurance over the winter months ahead of the spring sprint season.

VICTORY IN THE LIGHTWEIGHT FOUR

The lightweight team entered three eights and four fours into competition at Princeton. The varsity eight came away with a third-place finish in 13:42, just 4.5 seconds off of the first-place Cornell boat and three seconds behind the host Tigers.

The second Yale boat finished in 11th place in 14:08, followed by the Elis’ C boat in 12th with a time of 14:11.

But the lone Yale victory of the weekend came from the varsity

40

YALE SCORERS Cameron Stanish ’18 – 26th place

20 seconds

Duncan Tomlin ’17 – 25th place Adam Houston ’18 – 17th place

FINISH LINE

lightweight four. Coxswain Eli Block ’16 and rowers Austin Velte ’16, William Harrington ’18, Brendan Kelleher ’17 and William Van Fossen ’17 completed the race — the second of the day across all competition — in 15:14, more than 10 seconds faster than the second-place Cornell four.

The Yale B four came in 10th, followed by the D crew in 13th and the C boat in 22nd in the 31-team event.

“The Chase is a great regatta because we have the whole team throwing down together. We had a good day as a team and we’re especially proud of the depth we showed with our third eight having an awesome run down the course,” Velte, the team’s captain, said. “We have a solid foundation here, so we’re excited to start preparing for spring racing.”

WOMEN CLOSE SEASON WITH STRONG RACE

60

James Randon ’17 – 5th place Kevin Dooney ’16 – 2nd place PHOEBE GOULD/PRODUCTION & DESIGN ASSISTANT

Trio of top-three finishes CREW FROM PAGE 14

MEN’S (5 MILES)

100

The Yale women also entered three eights into competition on Lake Carnegie this past Sunday. The varsity boat ultimately claimed third place with a time of 15:51, beating rival Princeton, who took fourth, by over two seconds. The varsity boat was bested only by Virginia and Brown, which both finished the course more than 10 seconds faster

Both plots show all 40 scoring runners in the men’s and women’s races and how many seconds behind the respective winners they finished. Several non-scoring runners are also plotted if they finished ahead of the last-scoring runner in the race. Yale’s runners are shown in white.

than the Yale A boat.

“It was a great way to cap off our fall season,” head coach Will Porter said. “This team has so much potential to grow through the winter and we are excited to get inside and start training toward next spring.”

The Yale B and C boats also performed strongly, finishing in the top quarter of the 65–boat field. The B crew finished in seventh place with a time of 15:07 and the C boat finished in 14th with a time of 15:26, ahead of the varsity crews of Ivy foes Penn and Dartmouth.

Captain Colleen Maher ’16 was especially proud of the depth the team demonstrated in closing out the fall season.

“All [three] boats had a strong race at Princeton,” Maher said. “There is always room to grow, but we feel proud of how we approached the racing … I think our team has a lot of good energy, and we have a lot of fun working hard together.”

Yale was the only school to place in the top three in each of the varsity eight competitions at the Chase, at which all eight Ivy programs were represented.

Contact ALEX HERKERT at alexander.herkert@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF BETSY CAR

Fresh off its triumph at the Head of the Charles, the heavyweight varsity eight was edged out by Princeton in New Jersey.

Lack of offense leads to losses

DENIZ SAIP/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Elis head into their final contest next weekend riding a 12-game losing streak.

FIELD HOCKEY FROM PAGE 14 shot on goal for the entire game.

Despite the tied score at halftime, Columbia was able to take control of the game in the second half. Midfielder Whitney Hartstone scored midway through the half, and approximately three minutes later the Lions struck again as midfielder Christina Freibott scored unassisted.

Katz stopped nine of the 12 shots taken

by Columbia in the 70-minute contest, while the Bulldogs managed just five shots on goal. Katz’s nine saves maintained her standing as second in all of Division I with 10.5 saves per game.

Midfielder Lily Smith ’18 managed to get two shots on goal for the Elis. Yale also committed 36 fouls in the game, 10 more than the Lions’ total of 26.

The Elis did not have much time to focus on the loss, though, as the team was back in action the very next day against non-conference opponent Lafayette.

“Our game plan against Lafayette was to do whatever it takes to get a win,” forward Carol Middough ’18 said. “We played cohesively and fought until the end but unfortunately we did not get the result we were looking for.”

Scoring was limited in the contest, as neither team reached the back of the net in the first half. The only goal scored in the game came from Lafayette forward

Rosie Shanks, who scored unassisted five minutes into the second half. Shanks scored while the ball was in midair off a rebound near the Bulldog goal.

Meanwhile, the Yale attack was quieted by a stellar defensive performance from the Leopards. All three shots on goal for the Elis came from the stick of Middough, though the Oceanport, New Jersey native was never able to connect.

Following the weekend’s results, the Bulldogs’ record stands at 2–14 on the season.

The Bulldogs will play their last regular season game Saturday against Brown.

Although Yale is winless thus far in the Ivy League, Brown has not fared much better. The Bears are ranked seventh in the Ivy League standings, with their only win coming against Dartmouth.

“The Brown game this upcoming weekend is very important to us considering that we are still looking for our first Ivy League win,” Middough said. “Ending the season on a high note would mean a lot for us. We’ve put in a lot of work this season and have grown as a team in many different ways, but we just don’t have the results on paper to show for it.”

The game will be Yale Senior Day, with the ceremony taking place before the game beings at 1 p.m.

Contact JACOB MITCHELL at jacob.mitchell@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 11

BULLETIN BOARD

TODAY’S FORECAST

TOMORROW

Sunny, with a high near 67. Calm wind becoming southwest around 6 mph.

THURSDAY

High of 66, low of 49.

High of 67, low of 55.

A WITCH NAMED KOKO BY CHARLES BRUBAKER

ON CAMPUS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3 4:30 PM 2015 Terry Lectures: “Becoming Darwin: History, Memory and Biography.” In a series of three lectures, Janet Browne, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, will explore the memory of Charles Darwin’s work and life. The first lecture, “Economist of Nature,” will discuss Darwin’s work, while the second two lectures will focus on his life as a scientist and his legacy as an icon. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Aud. 7:00 PM Choctaw Lessons. Come to the Native American Cultural Center to learn the Choctaw language in a series of classes offered through the Native American Language Project.

No knowledge of Choctaw is necessary, and all Yale students are welcome! Native American Cultural Center (26 High St.).

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4 6:00 PM How to Read the Souls of Black Folk in a PostRacial Age. Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway will discuss the classic work by the eminent sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, in relation to the contemporary period often dubbed the post-racial age. Holloway’s talk will expand on his own provocative essay published in the new edition of Du Bois’ work that Holloway edited. New Haven Public Library - Ives Main Branch (133 Elm St.).

7:00 PM “YFS Advance Screening - BROOKLYN.” Join the Yale Film Society for a special advance screening of “Brooklyn” (USA, 2015) 111 min. Free Admission. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), Aud.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5 7:30 PM “Capitalism and the Climate Change Crisis.”

Presented by Margins magazine and Fossil Free Yale, Fred Magdoff, a professor of soil science at the University of Vermont, will be discussing capitalism’s relationship to the climate change crisis and how we can achieve a sustainable economy and society.

Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High St.), Rm. 102.

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

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

To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CLASSIFIEDS

CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Woman who turns up in Rick’s gin joint 5 41st or 43rd president 9 National park in the Canadian Rockies 14 __-chef 15 One of Pittsburgh’s three rivers 16 Like a loud crowd 17 Just swell 19 Itsy-__ 20 Generous __ fault 21 Serious romantic outing 23 Hot beverage server 26 Personal ad abbr.

27 Sawmill input 28 Pursue and catch 31 South Seas wrap 33 Freshman and sr.

34 Aussie hoppers 36 Affected coyness, with “the” 37 Stylist’s appliance 40 Hot under the collar 43 Button pressed for silence 44 Pal of Huck 47 Cellphone reminders 49 Yosemite granite formation 52 Dues payer: Abbr.

53 Chocolate pooch 55 Like Huck and Yosemite, nounwise 56 Sitcom with Richie and the Fonz 60 Hosp. trauma centers 61 Outwit 62 Lowe’s rival 66 Ionian Sea island 67 Spellbound 68 Mickey and Mighty 69 Cheez Whiz company 70 Shakespearean villain 71 How many TV shows are shown, and a hint to the seven longest across answers’ common feature

11/3/15

By Bruce Haight

DOWN 1 “More or less” suffix 2 Gehrig who usually batted after Ruth 3 Baskers’ acquisitions 4 Invite to the movies, say 5 Gym specimen 6 “Oops!”

7 Father 8 Georgetown team 9 Youthful countenance 10 Saharan 11 Very few 12 Slick trick that’s “pulled” 13 Prepare a sunny-side-up breakfast 18 Three feet 22 Bugs and Rabbits, e.g.

23 Your, of yore 24 Where It.’s at 25 More formal “Me neither!”

29 Wriggly bait 30 “Ya think?”

32 1921 robot play 35 Span. miss

Monday’s Puzzle Solved

SUDOKU DREAMING ABOUT THANKSGIVING

8

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

37 “Ben-__” 38 “Well said” 39 Business review website 40 Pork knuckle 41 Rigby of Beatles fame 42 Egg-based paint 44 Some English, at Wimbledon 45 Cockney abode 46 Body of eau 48 Unhappy

11/3/15

50 Mister Rogers 51 Scale starters 54 Religion founded in Persia 57 Drag on a cigar 58 Flexibilityimproving discipline 59 Urban haze 63 Swelled head 64 Scot’s “Oh my!”

65 Actor Knight

1

6 9 7 8 2 8 3 9 5 5 6 2 6 9 3

5 7 7 3 6 9 1

9

3 8 9 6 7 7

4 8 7 2

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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Nicotine reduces aggressive episodes

BY CHLOE KIMBALL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER For many people, the word nicotine conjures an image of a toxic and addictive drug — the key component of tobacco. The Yale School of Medicine, however, is rewriting nicotine’s unfavorable reputation.

This spring, Yale published two papers: one demonstrating that nicotine reduces aggression in three different types of mouse, and another finding that transdermal nicotine patches — those placed on the skin’s surface — alleviate aggression common in patients suffering from autism spectrum disorders. According to Gerrit I. van Schalkwyk, clinical fellow at the Yale School of Medicine and coauthor of the second study, some parents who have heard rumors of nicotine’s beneficial side effects already use the drug to treat their children’s aggression, even though there is insufficient evidence to support the scientific claim. But with these two studies, the Yale researchers aimed to change that.

“I think it would be helpful to understand the relative risks and benefits [of such nicotine use] in a more scientific way,” van Schalkwyk said.

The researchers conducted a “resident-intruder test” in which an intruding mouse was placed in a resident mouse’s home cage for a fixed time interval. The study measured the time it took for the resident mouse to make the first attack against the intruder as well as recording the total number of attacks made throughout the intrusion interval. The researchers also analyzed nicotine’s effects on locomotion and sociability along with mouse brain dissections and

imaging.

In the human study, a transdermal nicotine patch was placed on an ASD patient when doctors suspected an act of aggression was imminent.

The severity of the patient’s aggressive behavior was quantified by the number of fourpoint restraints and physical holds needed to subdue the patient’s aggression. Researchers compared the frequency of such restraints and holds when the patches were and were not in use.

In describing the connection between the two papers, van Schalkwyk explained that basic scientific data concerning nicotine’s effects on mice paved the way for deeper analysis of the drug’s effects on human behavior.

But according to Charles Nelson, pediatrics and neuroscience professor at Harvard University, extending the implications of the findings to humans is complicated for three primary reasons.

First, scientists have identified various and distinct forms of human aggression, which are likely associated with different neurobiological mechanisms, Nelson said. This is not the case with mice, Nelson added.

“Thus, whether nicotine administration would impact all or only some forms of human aggression is open to debate,” Nelson said.

Additionally, humans differ from mice in that they have large prefrontal cortexes, giving humans the ability to moderate displays of aggression, he added.

And there is also the practical concern that nicotine as a drug is potentially neurotoxic, Nelson said.

“Perhaps in severe cases of self-injury, [medicating with

nicotine] might be appropriate, but I doubt one would want to start medicating boys who act out in preschool with nicotine,” he said.

Alan S. Lewis, who coauthored both papers, said nicotine patches are a viable form of medication because they do not lead to addiction.

Lewis said that he and his colleagues concluded wholeheartedly after reading the literature that using transdermal nicotine patches will not lead people to start to smoke.

The addictive quality of nicotine is at least partially contingent on the means by which the drug is administered, both Lewis and van Schalkwyk explained. When using cigarettes, nicotine is delivered rapidly and efficiently to the brain whereas the transdermal nicotine patches used in Yale’s experiment released the drug slowly into the blood stream.

For this reason, previous studies looking at the cognitive effects of long-term nicotine administration have generally reported no signs of nicotine addiction in their subjects.

Moreover, those with ASD are much less likely to smoke cigarettes than the general population because their health tends to be more closely monitored by others.

William Findley, doctor of physiology and neuroscience, critiqued these findings, arguing that the statistics in the paper concerning mice are not convincingly analyzed. The analysis could be improved upon by an inclusion of different regression models, he said.

Findley also noted that the findings on mice are not statistically significant under more conservative models.

Findley then emphasized that the human experimenta-

tion looked only at one patient, meaning it does not constitute a “scientific finding,” but rather renders the experiment a “case study.”

“Case studies are neat inspirations for science, but are not general scientific knowledge in-and-of themselves,” he said.

Lewis said Findley’s take on the human study is valid, although he does not consider it a criticism as much as a description of what a case report is. He added that while case reports do not prove anything in a scientific sense, they are valuable in that they can be used as springboards for more rigorous study. Lewis and van Schalkwyk said they hope to substantiate their findings by testing a greater number of human patients in a more controlled and systematic study.

Lewis said the reason that his case study only looked at one patient because it is difficult to obtain approval to use nicotine patches on humans.

“Although [transdermal nicotine] is FDA approved to treat smoking sensation in adults, we ethically can’t conduct a clinical trial on a number of patients without getting approval from Yale’s institutional review board,” Lewis said.

The particular patient examined in this report was unique in that he had been trialed on “almost every other medication” so his legal guardian approved its use after the risks and benefits were discussed, Lewis added.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 68 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder.

Contact CHLOE KIMBALL at chloe.kimball@yale.edu .

CAROLINE TISDALE/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

New smartphone attachment detects sickle cell disease

BY SARAH GAVIS-HUGHSON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A recent Yale co-authored paper presented a new platform for the detection of sickle cell disease — a 3D printed smartphone attachment that will allow for quick data collection both in the U.S. and in developing countries.

The paper, published in the journal Nature on Oct. 22, was co-authored by researchers from the University of Connecticut, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technol-

ogy and the Yale School of Medicine. The researchers developed a small attachment for the Samsung Galaxy S4 that uses the phone’s built-in camera and an Android application, which they wrote, along with magnets, a disposable microcapillary — a narrow tube and optical components. The device tests small blood samples for sickle cell disease. The research was funded by a 2011 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a 2014 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty

International Center.

“If a child is known to have sickle cell disease in the first year, then there are treatments available and treatments can prolong the lifespan of the child,” said Ionita Ghiran, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and paper co-author. “The problem is that nobody can detect it … and by the time it’s obvious, it’s way too late. So we were hoping that by using our device we’d be able to prevent death or at least postpone it.”

The testing platform devel-

oped by the researchers is based on magnetic levitation. A small blood sample is mixed with the element gadolinium and other chemicals and loaded into a microcapillary. Inside the device, the blood sample is illuminated and magnified. The magnets then levitate the red blood cells.

Because sickle cells exposed to gadolinium have a higher density than healthy red blood cells, they will not levitate as high. Using the smartphone camera and the application, the heights of the cells are plotted and analyzed.

The mean height value and standard deviation are sent for diagnosis.

In theory, a minimally trained person could perform this testing and patients could be diagnosed remotely, opening up possibilities for the platform to be used in developing countries, said Savas Tasoglu, mechanical engineering professor at the University of Connecticut and co-author of the paper.

Ikbal Sencan, diagnostic radiology postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of Medicine

CATHERINE YANG/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

and paper co-author, said the study has important possibilities for communities in developing countries where medical clinics and expensive equipment may not be present.

“You only need [a minimally trained person] in that town so they can actually help with basic data collection,” she said. “They can actually send the results to the trained physicians, so they can get diagnostic results very easily.”

The technology would also allow people living with the disease in developed countries to check their own sickle cell levels as a function of time and share them with their physicians, possibly reducing the number of visits to a clinic, Tasoglu said.

According to John D. Roberts, Medical Director of the Adult Sickle Cell Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital, sickle cell disease is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Southern India and, to a lesser extent, in the Mediterranean. However, Roberts said that he would be concerned about the reliability of the device’s results.

Some challenges remain with development of the technology.

According to Ghiran, a major barrier to development of this technology is the different camera positioning on different smartphones, which prevents one attachment from working with different models. For example, the device cannot be used with any iPhone or even with other Samsung models.

Still, Tasoglu hopes to commercialize his idea. He said he wants to start a company using this technology not just for sickle cell detection but also for other applications including cancer cell detection.

The co-authors said this paper is the first in a set of research, and that they are also exploring detection of anemia and of malaria by the same method.

Tasoglu said they are also looking to diagnose different subtypes of sickle cell disease.

Up to 25 percent of people living in Central and West Africa have sickle cell disease, according to the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc. Contact SARAH GAVIS-HUGHSON at sarah.gavis-hughson@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 13

“Every time you dive, you hope you’ll see something new - some new species. Sometimes the ocean gives you a gift, sometimes it doesn’t.” JAMES CAMERON DEEP SEA EXPLORER

Researchers discover new tortoise species

CATHERINE YANG/CONTRIBURING ILLUSTRATOR

BY MAYA CHANDRA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER A Yale-led team of researchers has identified a new species of giant tortoise living on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos.

According to the team’s Oct. 27 research paper, the island of Santa Cruz is home to two populations of giant tortoises: the Reserva in the west and the Cerro Fatal in the east. These populations were previously thought to be members of the same species, Chelonoidis porteri. A research team, headed by Adalgisa Caccone, a Yale senior research scientist and director of the Molecular Systematics and Conservation Genetics Laboratory, conducted extensive genetic analysis of the two populations and concluded that they are different species with clearly distinct evolutionary histories.

The findings were published

Oct. 27 in the journal PLOS ONE. The Cerro Fatal population is named Chelonoidis donfaustoi after a park ranger, Fausto Llerena Sánchez, with the nickname “Don Fausto,” who recently retired after 43 years working in the park.

“The two species on Santa Cruz are not each other’s closest relatives. They are cousins basically. The closest relatives of the new species are on San Cristobal,” Caccone said. “Santa Cruz was colonized twice by different lineages of tortoises which diverged somewhere else.”

Ylenia Chiari, an evolutionary biology professor at the University of South Alabama, got involved in studying the tortoises for this project in 2006.

She studied the shell morphology of the tortoises on Santa Cruz to see if differences in shell shapes supported the hypothesis that there were two different

species on the island. However, while the morphological differences were clear when examining the thousands of organisms of a population, they were not easily noticeable at an individual level.

“It’s like height in humans.

Based on how tall a person is, you cannot say if they’re from the Netherlands or Italy. But if you compare the mean of heights from those countries, you see clear differences. With the tortoises’ shell shapes it is the same,” Chiari said.

However, genetic differences proved to be clearer. The researchers analyzed both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites from blood samples collected from Galapagos tortoises. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to the offspring, completely intact, Caccone said. Micro-satellites are combinations of DNA inherited

from both parents, she added.

Combining these two markers, a more complete picture of the two species differing evolutionary relationships was formed, Caccone said.

According to Caccone, the two species can interbreed and create viable offspring, but this occurrence is so rare that the two populations have not yet merged.

There are less than 200 Cerro Fatal tortoises left on Santa Cruz, Caccone added. Onethird of the 40 square kilometers the Cerro Fatal occupies is outside of the national park, which puts the tortoises living there at risk to dangers from agriculture and tourism. Their classification as new species will push the Galapagos Conservancy to prioritize protecting them, said Caccone.

Additionally, now that the distinction between the two

species is clear, there are possibilities for future research regarding the relationships between the tortoises and ecology.

“Once we know how populations are different genetically then we can begin to study how each population is uniquely suited to the environment that it’s in,” said Scott Glaberman, study co-author and biology professor at the University of South Alabama.

Glaberman originally got involved in the project in 2003 as a graduate student at Yale and was involved in early trips to the Galapagos to collect blood samples from the tortoises.

Director of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative at the Galapagos Conservancy Washington Tapia Aguilera wrote in a Sunday email to the News that there is a planned 2016 census of the tortoise population that will

help researchers at the Galapagos Conservancy understand the conservation status of the Cerro Fatal population.

Yale has a variety of projects based in the Galapagos. Andres Valdivieso ’16, an environmental studies major, spent this past summer working at the Galapagos Conservancy with Tapia.

He participated in a variety of projects, including the release of young Española tortoises on the island Santa Fe, an island whose original tortoise population went extinct more than 150 years ago. Valdivieso is currently involved in preparations for an expedition that will take Caccone back to the Galapagos to find hybrid tortoises for a captive breeding program.

The oldest giant tortoise on record lived to be 152 years old.

Contact MAYA CHANDRA at maya.chandra@yale.edu .

Smaller right hippocampus associated with depression

BY SARAH STEIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Clinical depression may be linked to decreased right hippocampal volume, according to a recently published study coauthored by Yale researchers.

Researchers from the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center in Hartford, the Yale School of Medicine and the University of Texas at San Antonio have found a genetic correlation between recurrent major depressive disorder and reduced right hippocampal volume. The researchers were able to locate a specific chromosome that influences both of these traits, indicating that there may be a specific gene for depression risk. They published their results in the journal Human Brain Mapping online on Oct. 20.

“There’s a genetic link,” said David C. Glahn, psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine and co-author of the study.

“It doesn’t have to simply be environment or the stressors that the individual had — there’s also a family predisposition.”

The impetus for the study, according to Glahn, was the research community’s dearth of knowledge about the genetics of depression. He said that research has made strides in learning about the genetics of illnesses such as autism and schizophrenia, but there is still much to be learned about depression.

The researchers began their work in a previous study in 2012 by investigating the behavioral and genetic commonalities in

groups of Mexican Americans.

The latest study, which was published in October, focused on the hippocampus, as it is often associated with depression.

“Repeated stress episodes, for instance during recurrent depressive episodes, may result in cumulative loss of hippocampal volume if no treatment is provided,” said Poul Videbech of the Glostrup Psychiatric Center in Denmark in a Saturday email to the News. “But it is also possible that some shrinkage of the hippocampus pre-exists before the depression, maybe because of genetic disposition.”

Study researchers conducted psychiatric interviews and used MRI and genetic analyses on 1,286 Mexican Americans from large families in San Antonio, Texas. The results found that a variation on chromosome 18 was associated with rMDD and the reduced size of the right hippocampus.

Experts in the field were interested in the possible role that the hippocampus seems to play in depression, despite its usual association with amnesia, spatial memory and navigation. Yet according to Videbech, patients with depression have shown deficits in memory function, indicating an association between the hippocampus and depression.

Glahn also said that depressed people may “over-remember” their bad memories.

“There are many studies showing memory issues in depression, particularly a bias for remembering negative over positive events,” Yale psychology

professor Jutta Joormann said.

“Being able to remember positive events also plays a big role in how easily people recover from negative affect.”

The size of the hippocampus is also influenced by environmental factors. Glahn, Videbech and Joormann all said that stress exposure can influence the size of the hippocampus, as has been found in studies of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This shrinkage of the hippocampus may be reversible, Videbech said. The hippocampus has the ability to create more cells in a process called neurogenesis, which may bring hope to those who have a genetic predisposition for smaller hippocampi.

“We did a large eight-year follow-up study of formerly depressed patients at my department and demonstrated that the hippocampal shrinkage that was present during the depression had disappeared, probably due to treatment,” Videbech said.

The Yale co-authored study has important implications in the investigation of the genetics of depression, according to the researchers. Glahn said that his team hopes to study the gene in vitro — in a petri dish — and discover if it is part of a network of genes that can be manipulated.

Eventually, he said, this work may extend to animal testing.

But one of the most important parts of the study, Glahn emphasized, was the inclusion of a different minority population. Glahn said he worries that psychiatric studies can often target certain groups of people and

HANNAH-KAZIS TAYLOR/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

leave out those that could provide vital information to the world of research.

“One of the reasons that we are working with this population is because they’re an underserved population,” Glahn said.

“It’s really important for us when

we’re doing research — particularly research that we hope someday will lead to a treatment — that we include everyone.”

According to the study, the researchers defined rMDD as two or more distinct episodes of depression meeting the criteria

of the DSM IV —the manual published by the American Psychiatric Association that covers all mental health disorders for both children and adults.

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

IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES

NFL Panthers 29 Colts 26

NBA Spurs 94 Knicks 84

NBA Bucks 103 Nets 96

SPORTS QUICK HITS

YALE MEN’S BASKETBALL HOOPS NAB TOP-25 VOTE In the AP’s preseason poll that declared North Carolina No. 1 in the nation, the Elis were one of 52 teams to receive at least one vote. Yale, who also earned a vote in the weekly poll after defeating UConn last December, is the only Ivy League squad represented.

y

CHRIS YOUNG PRINCETON ALUM WINS TITLE Thanks to late-game heroics Sunday night, the Kansas City Royals, including 2002 Princeton grad Chris Young, defeated the New York Mets to claim the World Series. Young is the first Ivy player to win a ring since Yale’s Craig Breslow ’02 did so with the Red Sox in 2013.

NBA Cavaliers 107 76ers 100

NBA Rockets 110 Thunder 105

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

“To see everyone come through when it mattered was really a big thing for us.”

KEVIN DOONEY ’16 MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

Best combined finish in 25 years at Heps CROSS COUNTRY

BY HOPE ALLCHIN STAFF REPORTER With the pressure of the postseason now upon them, the Yale men’s and women’s cross country teams both posted their most impressive performances of the season this weekend, placing third and second, respectively, against a field of Ivy League foes.

In Friday’s Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, the Bulldogs narrowly missed two first-place rankings, as the conference’s annual competition saw one of its closest finishes in recent history. The second-place finish for the Eli women was their best showing at Heps since 2002, and not since 2003 have the men posted a result as high as third place. The two teams placed in the top three at once for the first time in 25 years.

“The team as a whole has consistently improved throughout the season,” captain Shannon McDonnell ’16 said. “As we prepare for [NCAA Northeast] Regionals and beyond, we aren’t looking to change anything but simply continue to progress.”

A pair of top-10 finishes propelled the women to the front of the field at the race, which was hosted

by Columbia at Van Cortland Park in New York City. Separated by exactly one second, Frances Schmiede ’17 and Dana Klein ’18 crossed the finish back to back in seventh and eighth place. Meet champion Princeton was the only other Ivy squad to have more than one member place in the top 10 on Friday.

Continuing the trend of running in pairs, Kelli Reagan ’18 and Ellie Atkinson ’19 kept close together as they crossed the finish line, earning 18th and 22nd place, respecSEE CROSS COUNTRY PAGE 10

KATRINA GARRY/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Frances Schmiede ’17 (left) and Dana Klein ’18 (right) placed within a second of each other and seventh and eighth overall, leading their team to a second-place finish at Heps.

Crew closes fall at Princeton Chase

Yale drops two on the road

BY JACOB MITCHELL STAFF REPORTER Playing in a pair of games over Halloween weekend, the Yale field hockey team suffered losses in both matches, falling in an Ivy League contest at Columbia and dropping its sixth one-goal defeat against Lafayette.

FIELD HOCKEY A single goal by midfielder Katerina Toffoloni ’19 was

not enough for the Elis (2–14, 0–6 Ivy) in their 3–1 loss to Columbia (9–7, 3–3) on Saturday, and despite improved defense the next day in Pennsylvania, the Leopards (9–9, 3–3 Patriot) shut out the Bulldogs for a 1–0 victory.

“We built on what we’ve been working on all season, had two tough losses, but both were good fights that we are proud of,” forward Alyssa Weiss ’17 said.

The losses over the weekend extended Yale’s losing

streak to 12 games as it heads into its season finale against Brown next Saturday.

Although Columbia drew first blood on Saturday after a corner shot from back Maeve Doherty made it past Yale goalkeeper Emilie Katz ’17, Yale evened the score heading into the second half. Toffoloni created a lane for herself and scored unassisted 25 minutes into the contest. The goal came on the freshman’s only SEE FIELD HOCKEY PAGE 10

COURTESY OF MICHELE HARRINGTON

The varsity lightweight fours boat claimed victory Sunday, beating second-place Cornell by more than 10 seconds.

BY ALEX HERKERT CONTRIBUTING REPORTER This past weekend, all three Yale crew teams — the heavyweights, the lightweights and the women — made the trip down to Princeton, New Jersey, to compete in the Princeton Chase.

The heavyweight varsity eight claimed a second-place finish while the lightweights and the women each finished in third in their respective varsity eights.

Meanwhile, the lightweight varsity four boat was the highlight

of the weekend, emerging victorious in its race on Sunday.

CREW All teams competed on Lake Carnegie, completing a threemile course against collegiate rivals to finish up the fall racing season.

HEAVYWEIGHTS TAKE SECOND

Following a record-setting victory at the Head of the Charles regatta only two weeks

earlier, the Yale heavyweight varsity eight came in second to home-team Princeton on Sunday. The A boat completed the course in 13:02, trailing the first place spot by nearly five seconds.

The Yale B and C boats took 15th and 16th place, respectively. The heavyweights did not enter any fours into competition.

Heavyweight captain Hubert Trzybinski ’16 noted that the team was not fully satisfied by the race on Sunday, but said he

STAT OF THE DAY 11

SEE CREW PAGE 10

DENIZ SAIP/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Midfielder Katerina Toffoloni ’19 scored the Elis’ lone goal on the weekend.

THE MARGIN, IN SECONDS, BY WHICH THE YALE LIGHTWEIGHT VARSITY FOURS BOAT WON AT THE PRINCETON CHASE. The Elis finished the race in 15:14.843, well ahead of the 15:25.824 time of second-place Cornell. Yale also finished third in the varsity lightweight eights race.