NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 49 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY CLOUDY
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// FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
MAKING THE EFFORT
INCOME N GET IT STUDENT INCOME CONTRIBUTION
GETTING AROUND
TUITION ON NUS
Gov. Dannel Malloy discusses $100 billion transportation lockbox
SINGAPORE GOVT. AID PACKAGE’S ROLE AT YALE-NUS
PAGES B3 WKND
PAGE 5 CITY
PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY
THE ALMOST GAME Bulldogs travel to New Jersey to take on the Princeton Tigers PAGE 10 SPORTS
Is the student contribution portion of
CROSS CAMPUS
Students submit new demands to Salovey BY DAVID SHIMER AND VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTERS
Hillary stays ahead. Despite
the support Sen. Bernie Sanders has received over the past months, Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 has the overwhelming favor of voters according to a survey conducted by The New York Times and CBS News. The poll asked voters how confident they were that each candidate would bring change to D.C. Sixty-two percent were confident about Clinton, while 51 percent felt the same about Sanders.
Ben on BuzzFeed. In an
interview with Buzzfeed, Curtis Bakal, a former editor of the Yale Record and classmate of GOP candidate Ben Carson ’73, confirmed Carson’s story about the fake Perspectives 301 exam. Bakal said the Record wrote a fake edition of the News that told the psychology students to take a make-up test because their exams had been burned, just as Carson wrote in his autobiography. KAIFENG WU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Days from The Game,
hundreds of students at Harvard have put aside the age-old rivalry to express solidarity for Yale and Missouri students on social media. Through Facebook statuses and tweets, student are expressing support. “In light of Harvard-Yale coming up, we definitely need to show this solidarity,” one Harvard junior said.
Just a tip. Speaking of The
Game, tickets for the event go on sale Monday at Payne Whitney Gym. The News recommends that you go early in the morning to get your ticket. Last year, students waited in line for up to three hours just to be told that the game was sold out. One last time. Students in CS50, the popular Harvard course that made its way to Yale this fall, will turn in their ninth and final problem sets at noon today. According to the course’s high dropout rate, the teaching assistants will have far fewer problem sets to grade this weekend than in September. Squash it. The Yale men’s and
women’s squash teams will play the other seven Ivies at their annual Ivy scrimmages this weekend. The matches will take place at the Brady Squash Center on Saturday on Sunday.
Holy Diwali. In honor of the
Festival of Lights, South Asian students will perform at Roshni, the largest annual cultural show on campus, this evening at 7 p.m. in Woolsey Hall. The show will be followed by an afterparty at Kelly’s on Crown.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1964 According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, New Haven’s Ward 1, which encompasses Old Campus and eight residential colleges, is named the most crimeridden neighborhood in the Ivy League. Follow along for the News’ latest.
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y
Roughly 200 students marched on President Peter Salovey’s house Thursday night to deliver new demands.
At close to midnight on Thursday night, roughly 200 students marched to University President Peter Salovey’s home on Hillhouse Avenue under a new name — Next Yale — wielding a new set of demands. The students said the new movement will hold Yale accountable to its students of color and that a diverse coalition of students crafted the new demands, which supersede those put together by the Black Student Alliance at Yale and presented to administrators more than a week ago. The new demands, which were read aloud to Salovey in front of his home, call on the University to develop ethnic studies, increase support for the cultural centers, address mental health issues for minority students and remove Nicholas and Erika Christakis from their respective positions as master and associate master of Silliman College. The students demanded an administrative response by Nov. 18. “Because the administration has been unwilling to properly address institutional rac-
ism and interpersonal racism at Yale, Next Yale has spent hours organizing, at great expense to our health and grades, to fight for a University where we feel safe,” one of the student leaders read from a prepared statement to Salovey. “Next Yale intends to hold Yale accountable to its students of color in the public eye.” The students who spoke said that over the past week, people of color — particularly women — have shared painful experiences of racism on campus and have met with administrators, faculty and fellow students to discuss how they can help foster a more inclusive and mutually respectful campus environment. However, they criticized Salovey for announcing an initiative to create a tobacco-free campus last Thursday in his first campuswide email since the racial controversies emerged. Students also pointed out that Salovey and Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway’s joint email on Tuesday focused largely on affirming students’ freedom of speech rather than on addressing racial tensions at Yale. Lex Barlowe ’17, who was SEE DEMANDS PAGE 6
Af-Am Department receives racist call BY SARA SEYMOUR AND VICTOR WANG STAFF REPORTERS The Department of African American Studies received a hate call yesterday, leading African American Studies Department Chair and English professor Jacqueline Goldsby GRD ’98 to pursue additional security around the department’s building.
In a 3 p.m. email Thursday, Goldsby informed the department’s faculty and students that a member of the department’s administrative staff had received a hate call on the department’s main phone line and had immediately reported it to the Yale Police Department. Goldsby encouraged staff to go home as she worked with YPD
No students on F&ES dean search committee BY BRENDAN HELLWEG AND PADDY GAVIN STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER As of late Thursday night, over one third of students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies had signed an open letter to University President Peter Salovey calling for him to place a student on the search committee for the school’s new dean, who will take the office next June. The letter was sent just hours after Salovey officially announced the composition of the search committee, whose current roster does not include any students. “We are deeply disappointed by President Salovey’s decision to exclude students from the F&ES dean search,” said Paul Burow FES ’16, co-chair of the F&ES Student Affairs Committee, who signed the letter. The document was also emailed last night to Senior Advisor to the President Martha Highsmith and current F&ES Dean Peter Crane, and it will be delivered in paper to all faculty mailboxes in the school this morning. Students can continue to sign the letter via an active Google Document. In the letter, the students argued that including them on the search committee would strengthen the relationship between the student body and the F&ES administration as well as bring a unique opportunity to
impact the future of the institution. “Student representation links the search committee with the broader doctoral and professional student body at F&ES, and provides a consistent voice on the committee that represents the perspective of the student body,” the letter states. “Most importantly, meaningful student involvement in the search process will result in greater student buy-in to the decisions made by the committee. This translates into broader student support for whoever is ultimately chosen as the new dean.” The letter noted that there is a precedent of student involvement — there were students, for example, on the committees that selected Dean of Yale College Jonathan Holloway and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Lynn Cooley. It added that the Dean of the F&ES similarly influences student life and research priorities at the school, and that its students, who have already completed baccalaureate degrees and have several years of work experience, are capable of engaging with the committee actively and meaningfully. “We approach our tasks and responsibilities with the utmost professionalism and have full faith in our student body to participate meaningfully in the SEE SEARCH PAGE 4
Chief Ronnell Higgins to plan building security measures. In an email to the Yale community late Thursday night, Higgins said Yale Police has added patrols while the investigation of the phone call continues. Goldsby told the News Thursday night that the call was “very disturbing, violent and racist,” and said the depart-
ment contacted the police in order to protect the department’s faculty, staff and students, as well as other Yale affiliates who use the building for academic purposes. Despite the scare, Goldsby emphasized that classes and other academic appointments will continue as usual in the coming days. “We absolutely must be vig-
ilant in this moment,” Goldsby wrote in her email. “Nothing is more important than our safety.” Goldsby told the News that the administrative assistant received the hate call at 1:07 p.m. and immediately alerted Goldsby and the YPD. Assistant SEE AF-AM PAGE 4
At AACC, students discuss diversity
IRENE JIANG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Hundreds gathered at the AACC to discuss the role of Asian-Americans in campus race dialogues. BY MONICA WANG STAFF REPORTER In the newly renovated rooms of the Asian American Cultural Center, hundreds of students gathered on Monday evening to voice their thoughts about race and diversity on campus. After a few remarks from AACC Dean Saveena Dhall, the roughly 300 attendees, most of whom were Asian-American, split up and formed smaller discussion groups to address the role of Asian-Americans in ongoing racial dialogues at Yale. Titled SPEAK, the event encouraged students to share thoughts and experiences, listen to each other and respond to recent race-
related developments on campus. Several attendees recounted personal stories of their own marginalization as Asian-American students at Yale, and many said they walked away more united — in fact, students said they were surprised that others in the Asian-American community also seek to express themselves politically. After SPEAK, students and staff began compiling a list of action steps, from creating an Asian-American solidarity GroupMe to retaining faculty of color, improving ethnic studies offerings on campus and demanding better mental health resources. To start, the AACC is planning its own teach-in next week to inform the larger
Yale community of the issues facing Asian-Americans on campus. “Many of you were speaking for the first time, many of you shared your disappointment at why Asian-Americans had not yet spoken, and many more listened, comforted and supported,” Dhall wrote in an email to the Asian-American community following the Monday night forum. “What we understood from the six conversations that took place during SPEAK is that there is a need for us to do more.” Dhall identified several measures the community must take in the wake of Monday night’s conversaSEE AACC PAGE 6
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “You accuse people of changing the subject — while trying to change yaledailynews.com/opinion
The job of the news W
hen I was a child, I used to write short stories about girls like my friends and me. As I grew older and read more books, I realized that the names I used weren’t ones used in books published by others. So, I changed the names of my friends and characters to be more like those names. My stories were about Gwendolyns and Lucys. My stories were no longer about Saras without the “h” or Rominas or even about Adrianas. What’s happening on our campus right now is a reshifting of focus. If you are an indigenous, queer, black, Latina, Asian, mixed woman or gender-nonconforming individual at Yale, the story of this week is about you. We have the eyes of this world. We have power. This is uncomfortable for people who prefer for the stories to be about them. These people want to hear stories from voices that are familiar. I consider myself a radical intersectional feminist. Many of my closest friends are women of color. Despite the diversity of my own circle, in this past week I was blown away by the amount of pain and trauma that people at this school were willing to share. This is the truth, and it is a truth that many of us did not know. At this historical moment, we must take it upon ourselves to do the job of truthtelling. We should engage with reporters if we feel safe enough to do so. We should write our own stories for wide audiences. You should advocate for your story to be told the way you want it to be told. Whatever you do: try your best to be heard, and heard accurately. I edited my high school newspaper for four years, an extracurricular that’s common among many of Yale’s admits. I intended to pursue journalism until the tragic murder of a close friend disclosed the most hideous sides of the media. When the Miami Herald published a photograph of me crying at my friend’s funeral, I was filled with disgust. The world had taken one of the most private, grief-stricken moments of my life and plastered it onto the Internet. To me, this was unforgivable. At the time of his death, I didn’t know how to communicate with my closest friends about the tragedy, but national media outlets insisted on pushing the most sensational aspects of a complex, traumatic story: they wanted to catch readers and viewers. They defined my friend by his famous death instead of his humble, brilliant and short life. This experience discouraged me from reading magazines or newspapers. I drew myself inward and my world
shrunk. My nickname growing up was CNN because of how often I watched that chanADRIANA nel, but not even AnderMIELE son Cooper could get me Check to watch the news. I was yourself angry. I was ex h a u s te d . And I was sick of watching incomplete narratives. Three years later, I am able to engage with the media again, but my relationship is layered and complicated. At this moment, while the outside media (both national and international) are directing their lenses at Yale, we have to play an active role. I acknowledge the News’ central role in communicating the reality of this historic moment. I choose to write for the News because I know it is the most read platform on campus and I know my message will reach a broad audience — even one that disagrees with me. In many ways, that is the audience I am targeting. But all publications contribute essential testimony in our efforts to understand the breadth of student lives and experiences, especially in recent weeks. I encourage you to look beyond the News toward publications such as DOWN, an online platform for students of color, and Broad Recognition, the online feminist magazine at Yale. Pay special attention to your social media accounts. The news is around you. You don’t need to know what a “lede” is to know how news matters. Oppression succeeds when the marginalized remain silent. This University’s history stems from the broader narrative of white men who colonized this continent. In recent decades, the University has made efforts to develop a more inclusive student body, and those students are reacting to this school’s failures to wholly address its place in history. This is a moment where we can retell that story. We must react. We must write. We must speak. We must use our own names. I have realized over the years that while my discomfort is valid, I have the power to tell my own stories. Writing is the only way I know how to heal from moments of profound pain. Women of color: Today I am asking you to speak and to write.
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COPYRIGHT 2015 — VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 49
'RALPHIEC88' ON 'GONSALVES: CONNECTING THE DOTS'
Change minds, not statuses I
t’s blindingly obvious from the tension on campus: Yale has a bit of a race problem. It’s been inspiring to see how campus has united as of late, and it’s great that we’re seeing a surge of student activism. But support from certain students has been accompanied by something concerning: dialogue that is self-congratulatory, if not entirely unproductive. Take the generic Facebook posts that went viral last week, for example; a significant number of white allies felt compelled to post some variant of this: “I know it’s not my place to speak and I’ve been debating this a long time, but … ” followed by a lengthy apology for their complicity in racial oppression. Throw in an anecdote or two, and the post was guaranteed to get 100 plus likes. Who are these posts meant for? Were they for other white allies? Patting oneself on the back seems like a pretty useless gesture. Did they instead expect some kind of reward or validation from people of color on their newsfeeds? I certainly hope not. At best, this is slacktivism — the perfect chance for Yalies eager to cash in on the latest social media trend, while also aligning themselves as paragons of justice. Of course not all of these posts should be read so cynically. Surely spreading aware-
ness — even on a Facebook page — is worth something, right? Verbalizing support or standing SHREYAS in solidarity peoTIRUMILA with ple of color around camRhyme and pus has value, but doing reason so doesn’t require writing the next great American novel. In fact, these transparent attempts to garner the most likes are arguably counterproductive. The nature of white privilege is that white voices are heard much more often than those of people of color. Such posts drown out the voices of the very victims allies are trying to help. When the very real issues for students of color become the fodder for a white popularity contest, we all suffer. A social media post does not absolve anyone from moral responsibility. These Facebook statuses and impassioned tweets raise a much bigger concern: where will these same allies — who are now rallying, chanting and decrying systemic racism — be in two weeks? When finals and job interviews roll around, will
Yale be quite so spirited? Beyond our social media archives, will we have accomplished anything substantive? Racial justice is Yale’s current issue du jour, just as divestment and mental health reform were the hot topics before it. What happened with those? Sure, we had a few protests — even a forum or two. We had panels; we had meetings; tears were spilled. And unfortunately, nothing really changed. Why? Though Yalies are good at “spreading awareness,” we don’t know how to do much else. It is an important first step that the Black Student Alliance at Yale outlined tangible and clear recommendations for campus reform, even if I don’t agree with all of them. I fear one thing however: the current push may not have a lasting impact when campus attention inevitably shifts elsewhere. The March for Resilience was a beautiful comingtogether of campus to show solidarity. But enacting structural change? That’s an uphill march of its own. So what should we be doing now? If you insist social media is the best platform for change, then at least do it productively. On Wednesday, my newsfeed was flooded with succinct and unpretentious statements of support for students at the University of Missouri. This simple
gesture spread across campuses nationwide, in part, because the messaged focused squarely on the issue, rather than on the person posting.
A SOCIAL MEDIA POST DOES NOT ABSOLVE ANYONE FROM MORAL RESPONSIBILITY But a much better solution is far away from our keyboards. For white allies, as trite as it may seem, you should reach out to friends and communities and ask one question: “How can I help?” For my fellow students of color, don’t conflate statuses with support. Invite your “allies” to hear your story. Ask them to join you at the cultural houses. And hold them accountable. Let’s not have another movement die with the semester. SHREYAS TIRUMALA is a sophomore in Trumbull College. His column runs on alternate Fridays. Contact him at shreyas.tirumala@yale.edu .
LAURIE WANG/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR
ADRIANA MIELE is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College. Her column usually runs on Thursdays. Contact her at adriana.miele@yale.edu .
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the subject.”
More than just dorms T
here have been many conversations on campus this week. At one that I attended, there was one point raised that particularly struck me. One of my fellow students explained how long-term solutions are too often the white, liberal justification for complacency, bureaucracy and the status quo in the midst of a crisis like the one we currently face. With this in mind, I’d like to start this column by reiterating the demands that Black Student Alliance at Yale have raised. Whether improving administrative response to instances of racism, instituting mandatory sensitivity training and other programs or prioritizing the recruitment and retention of faculty of color, these proposals are new ways Yale can become as inclusive as its brochures make it out to be. But more than pointing out what Yale lacks, I’ve been wondering about what already exists on campus that could be fundamentally changed for the better. Students must take a critical look at the structures at the foundation of life at Yale and how they may perpetuate the problems the above demands aim to address.
Let’s start with residential colleges. The residential college system more or less mandates diversity, as stuAUSTIN are ranBRYNIARSKI dents domly sorted into one of 12 Guns & colleges after their accepbutter tance into Yale. Students live, eat and study with people they might not otherwise interact with, if left to their own devices. For our first two years at Yale, we’re nudged by our mutual habitats to interact. This fizzles out, though. More than ever in recent memory, students are moving off campus to live in apartments, relishing in the opportunity to feel less stifled than they would in an oncampus abode. The annexing of students to Old Campus or Swing Space further exacerbates this off-campus exodus. Even where we choose to socialize has shifted away from the residential college model. It seems that every event hosted
by a college is now being held at an off-campus location — we hardly knew ye, Harvest — rather than in the good old-fashioned dining halls. Amid crackdowns on suite parties, the landmarks of the campus party scene have become fraternity houses, institutions founded on exclusion. Maybe our alcohol policy factors into this. One element of Yale’s past that we actually can draw from is the more liberal attitudes towards drinking. This prohibitive tenor pushes people away. Senior societies are often explained as being so important to Yale for their ability to bring Yale students who wouldn’t otherwise cross paths together weekly, in the same room, for hours on end. Why can’t the residential college system underscore this phenomenon even earlier? How useful is diversity training if people are only going to be living and spending time with others that look like them? To be sure, it’s also important to invest in and upkeep the cultural houses, where groups of students can discuss their experiences among themselves. Questioning how campus in general can be more inclusive
should occur alongside ensuring that these spaces are well-supported to meet the needs of people of color. The University is at a turning point in its institutional history. On one hand, two brand new residential colleges are slated to open in 2017. On the other hand, the very idea that the newly ordained Schwarzman Center will serve as a campus “center” has the potential to undermine the role of the 12 existing ones,and debates over how Calhoun's name and the use of the title "Master" hinder inclusivity still loom over campus. With this tension comes the opportunity to reevaluate the role of the residential college system. At a time when we’re talking a lot about how the Yale experience falls short, it is hard to overlook the role something as foundational as the resident college system plays. Only after the administration meets the immediate demands of students of color can these “long-term” solutions can come to the fore. AUSTIN BRYNIARSKI is a senior in Calhoun College. His column runs on Fridays. Contact him at austin.bryniarski@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
FREE SPEECH
ANNA QUINDLEN “Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed.”
GUEST COLUMNIST SCOT T STERN
GUEST COLUMNIST S H YA M A L A RAMAKRISHNA
The real speech crisis F
ree speech is in serious danger on college campuses. Everyone knows that. It’s common knowledge. Of course, it’s complete crap, but you hear it everywhere. Take President Salovey’s freshman address last year, when he informed his captive audience that the “freedom to express ideas has been threatened.” Salovey elaborated, “Invitations to provocative speakers have been withdrawn; politicians, celebrities and even university presidents invited to deliver commencement addresses have, under pressure, declined to speak to graduates.” Or take the words of another president. “I don’t agree that [students] have to be coddled and protected from different points of view,” Barack Obama told an audience in Iowa, shortly before parodying a college student who whines, “I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” Or take the recent debate sweeping across campus about racism at Yale, which Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, called “one of the most intense free-speech controversies I’ve ever seen.” What all of these critics fail to understand is that there is, indeed, a threat to free speech on college campuses — but it isn’t the students. It’s university administrators. Allow me
to explain. First, let’s note that the socalled crisis of free speech decried by Obama, Salovey, Lukianoff and all the rest does not, in fact, exist. This crisis is actually just the cowardice of speakers unwilling to face free speech from a viewpoint other than their own. The examples inevitably brought up — of controversial commencement speakers like Condoleezza Rice, Christine Lagarde and Robert Birgeneau bowing out—usually skate over the fact that no one disinvited or blocked these speakers. Likewise, no one has shouted down or withdrawn invitations to Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and the other comedians who have claimed to be unwilling to speak on campuses anymore because students are just too darn sensitive and can’t take a joke. (Likewise, no one restricted the rights of students who want to dress up in offensive Halloween costumes; they simply counseled sensitivity and thoughtfulness.) In the face of potential criticism or protest over some of the messed up stuff they’ve done or said, these speakers and comedians have voluntarily opted not to put themselves out there. They are the ones unwilling to face speech that they disagree with. These speakers are avoiding campuses precisely because they
don’t want to face the free speech of their ideological adversaries. Or take the new cri de coeur from the anti-P.C. center and right: trigger warnings. Trigger warnings, many claim, promote censorship and limit discourse — and when did college students get so sensitive anyway? In reality, as a 2015 Harris poll illustrated, those on the right are far more likely to favor ideologically motivated censorship than those on the left. Rather, trigger warnings are simply a recommendation, a courtesy — not censorship. They are a long-overdue recognition that assault and violence are far more common than the stigmas of the past allowed us to acknowledge — especially for the most marginalized among us — and we should respect that. The marginalized can’t be as effectively silenced any more — and that’s terrifying to those in power. In a nation with literally thousands of colleges and millions of students, those claiming there is a free speech crisis on campuses — and, for the record, they’ve been claiming this for decades — have been forced to rely on a handful of misleading anecdotes. And anecdotes do not a crisis make. Yet, as I wrote above, there is a crisis. It is not often a crisis of censorship or suppression, yet
it is an important one. When one side of a “discourse” has a much louder megaphone than the other, and when it uses that megaphone to actively mislead, it is limiting the ability of the other side to get its point a fair hearing. Free speech is threatened when administrators tear down a poster pointing out a lack of faculty diversity and replace it with lollipop-laden pieces of propaganda. Free speech is threatened when the administration puts up highly misleading posters mere days in advance of a rally for graduate student unionization — and then claims the timing was purely coincidental. Posters that, by the way, completely ignored the issues the grad students were protesting over. Posters that were a patent attempt to obfuscate and distort, an attempt to avoid genuine engagement. Free speech is threatened when a residential college master shouts down his students; even if they shout back, he has all the institutional power. Their “discourse” is neither open, nor equal, nor free. Free speech is threatened when administrators shut students out of important discussions, such as those concerning divestment, but then bring them in after a decision has been made in order to pretend there was dialogue. Free
speech is threatened when administrators paper over that whole reality with deceptive press releases or the conveniently timed announcement of half-hearted sustainability initiatives. Misdirection and propaganda threaten free speech far more than trigger warnings do. Free speech is also threatened when, as Tyler Blackmon ’16 noted in these pages, President Salovey announces in his freshman address that “petitions or protests” or the use of social media is contrary to a “rational, open discourse.” Salovey’s speech said students should have a dialogue about race — but only on his limited, self-serving terms. Dean Jonathan Holloway echoed this construction when he said, in a freshman address calling for a dialogue, that certain things are already “off the table.” Free speech on campus is vitally important. But free speech is threatened when the whole discussion surrounding it ignores the real threat and castigates the most marginalized among us. Free speech is threatened when those who already have more power use it to mislead and to silence.
do doubt their judgment. I am all for standing up for one’s beliefs. But when an office-bearer feels his views conflict with his duties, he must sometimes make a trade-off between the two. If conviction comes into conflict with ambition, I would gladly sacrifice the pull of office for the call of conscience. All of this is not to suggest that the discourse on our campus is perfect. By all means, question the reasoning (or lack thereof) of fellow students, or the intellectual tenor of the community. If it suits you, reminisce about the 1960s, when college students stormed University buildings, the New Haven police wiretapped the phones of Yale’s student leaders and women were entirely disenfranchised. But don’t doubt the Yale community’s commitment to free speech. It is as strong as it has ever been. JUN YAN CHUA is a sophomore in Saybrook College. Contact him at junyan.chua@yale.edu .
SHYAMALA RAMAKRISHNA is a junior in Davenport College. Contact her at shyamala.ramakrishna@yale.edu .
SCOTT STERN is a 2015 graduate of Branford College. He is a former staff columnist for the News. Contact him at scott.stern@yale.edu .
The power of argument I
solution. When I attended the Yale Political Union’s debate on the same topic, I was impressed with the rigorous arguments by the professors and students who spoke. I am a strong believer that the only way to reach truth is to engage in logical argument with peers willing to challenge each other’s views. A good argument involves assessing one another’s claims on their veracity and evaluating one another’s warrants on their strength. While there has been no resolution to the Calhoun debate, I believe the great discussions that have taken place and the civil approach of Yale administrators and students will allow us to reach consensus. The same cannot be said for the recent debates surrounding the struggles facing women of color on campus. I watched in horror last Thursday as a stu-
dent cursed out Holloway. I was disgusted by the crude joke said by a speaker at the Buckley Program’s lecture. I was terrified by the student who cursed at Master Nicholas Christakis, telling him to “shut up” and to stop trying to create an “intellectual space.” This type of discourse could not be further from what we should be doing right now. An intellectual environment is exactly what we need. Let us have a civil debate. Let us leave the emotionally charged arguments and vulgar jokes behind and instead pursue logical discourse. Let us get back to arguing, not in a chaotic unproductive way, but in a civil way where we can hear everyone’s claims and evaluate them based on the soundness of the reasoning behind them. Being civil is not enough. We also need to rid our arguments of unsubstantiated claims.
While oppressive structures may exist, uncritically asserting their existence does not help move forward the discussion. Similarly, let’s move away from broad allusions to “lived experiences” or “the necessity of free speech.” Instead, we can use concrete arguments and examples that may prove the existence of oppressive structures, the reality of negative experiences or the importance of free speech. Abstract ideas without examples and evidence to support them can be opaque to those who do not often discuss them. To have productive arguments, we need to make our rhetoric clear and accessible to those who disagree with us. To be sure, I understand why the campus is emotionally charged right now. It is reasonable for issues of race to invoke strong reactions and
anger. But sometimes it is necessary to keep our emotions in check. Making someone cave to demands through an emotional assault is never preferable to reaching a mutual understanding. In the former case, one party will always walk away wronged and bitter. In the latter, rigorous debate can lead to consensus and learning. Part of what makes Yale special is the amazingly intelligent people who work and study at the University. There is no better way to leverage all these great minds for the good of the Yale community than to allow them to discuss and evaluate each other’s ideas civilly. Let’s have a good argument. It’s what we’re best at. DANIEL WASSERMAN is a freshman in Davenport College. Contact him at daniel.wasserman@yale.edu .
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T J U N YA N C H U A
No threat to free speech R
ecently, it has become fashionable in some circles to posture oneself as a martyr for free speech. As someone from a different part of the world, where the right to free speech is far more tenuous, I know exactly what an antifree speech mob looks like — and Yale students don’t even come close. Let’s be clear: as a private institution, Yale has no constitutional obligation to protect First Amendment rights. But Yale subscribes to a set of high standards. The 1975 Woodward Report, which forms the bedrock of University policy, offers some of the most robust protections for freedom of expression amongst American universities. Unfortunately, conservatives and self-proclaimed libertarians often use the Woodward Report misleadingly. The protection of free speech does not entail protection from the backlash that arises from a speech act. As long as the reaction does not involve violence,
threats of violence or disruption of others’ speech, anything is fair game. Contrary to the view that the marketplace of ideas insulates you from the possibility of a boycott, the Woodward Report acknowledges that “social and ethical responsibilities must be left to the informal processes of suasion, example and argument.” Accordingly, the picketing outside of last Friday’s Buckley Program conference was perfectly consistent with the principles of free expression, to the extent that it was peaceful and did not obstruct entrance into the building. So, too, was the confrontation with Nicholas Christakis in the Silliman courtyard, and the demands that he apologize to students. In fact, the Woodward Report specifically states that it is “desirable” for individuals to register their disagreement with speakers whose views they find offensive in “a wide-open and robust fashion.” Some seem to believe that speech is only legitimate if it is
logical, dispassionate and civil. But the protection of overtly disrespectful speech is what lies at the heart of this freedom. When one genuinely believes that an injustice has transpired, outrage can sometimes be a virtue, even if it is expressed in a four-letter word. Of course, what constitutes an injustice is a matter for debate. But this caveat does not invalidate the sentiment of those who believe an injustice has indeed occurred. Too often, “rationality” is the privilege of those who haven’t experienced the irrationality of prejudice. While I don’t necessarily think Christakis should be forced to resign, I wouldn’t object if he were booted out. To a greater degree than faculty members, administrators are routinely expected to exercise discretion and sound judgment in their words, in order to effectively carry out their duties. The authors of the Woodward report used soaring language, but they were also realists. For instance, they found it com-
pletely acceptable for administrators to persuade a group not to invite a speaker who might cause serious tension on campus. By contrast, Christakis has been tone-deaf to the sentiments of his constituents, and has persisted in polarizing the college. His wife’s use of the Silliman mailing list to propagate her personal views was already a misjudgment — there are other forums to share such views. Subsequently, on Nov. 4, the official Silliman Twitter account was used to re-tweet an article on free speech from Christakis’ personal account. The next day, Christakis failed to ensure his guest complied with University policy prohibiting video recording on campus without the administration’s permission. And this week, Christakis is away in London even as many University leaders spend their nights and weekends being present for their students during this pivotal moment. While I don’t doubt the Christakis’ motivations, I
A
n old acquaintance from my hometown watched footage of the student confrontation last Thursday with professor Nicholas Christakis. He posted it on Facebook, mocking participants for their outbursts: “The idea that such smart people can be so dumb is really comforting!” When I pointed out that it might be more productive to ask what led bright 20-year-old students to sob and scream in the middle of a courtyard, he derided them for using curse words. To him, the students were “doing an injustice to their movement;” to him, their yelling undermined the foundation of their anger. There is an unjust burden on students of color to express their thoughts on recent events, and on their experiences more generally, in a dispassionate and academic way. Furthermore, not everyone shares this burden equally. The onus of rational justification never seems to fall on those who dismiss the protesters as “hysterical.” Yet, there is good reason for marginalized students’ fear and outrage. Students at the University of Missouri were forced to stay home from class in the wake of racialized murder threats. Yale student organizers, too, have had to seek protection after receiving death threats. More generally, students of color live in an environment where attempts to discourage blackface and other belligerent displays of racism are met with thundering declarations of “free speech.” And when they leave the university, their status as Yale graduates will not magically eliminate material race- and gender-based dangers to their lives and livelihoods. Students are not just being criticized for having “disproportionate” reactions. Critics also police their emotional reactions in racialized and gendered ways. The vocabulary of “shrieking” and “whining,” when applied to concrete arguments by Black, Latino, Native and Asian-American women, unmistakably evokes tropes that were built to silence them. The easiest, laziest way to disregard a Black woman’s argument is to make her the “angry Black woman” — no matter how reasoned and articulate it might be. In addition, this tactic tastelessly overlooks how easy it is to be “calm” when the students chanting “white power” at Mizzou are not directly threatening you. Furthermore, the people who question these students’ pain are not subject to the same degree of scrutiny. Where were the tone police when Christakis likened students chalking in Silliman to a “mob,” or when he shouted a student down to tears? Where are they when students don war bonnets as Halloween costumes? Are those choices not plainly tone-deaf? The regulation of anger is intentional here. It derails the conversation from the racism and misogyny that run deep in our communities. Calls to facilitate discussion sound great, but dialogue means little when students must underplay the ways they’ve been hurt in order to participate in it. Media outlets continue to use the word “coddled” to describe students who openly express frustration at the way they’re treated. What about the “free speech” crowd, who have coddled themselves into only accepting the so-called “level-headed” language they find palatable? What about the responses we’ve received from the highest levels of Yale’s administration, vaguely encouraging students to “engage in discourse?” They fail to address the inherent unevenness of a discourse that has, until now, forced students of color to intellectually justify their feeling unwelcome here. Dehumanization is, by nature, emotional. To ignore that is to coddle students who haven’t come to terms with their role, their complicity, in white supremacy. To be sure, raw anger has never been and can never be a social movement’s final objective. Neither is it the be-all end-all of student activism here on campus. The Black Student Alliance at Yale has already laid out a concrete list of demands to the administration. Other cultural centers have begun to articulate policy changes that would help afford all students the dignity and institutional recognition they deserve. No administrative response would have occurred this week without an outpouring of emotion and anger from our community. The hearts and the minds of students of color cannot be dissociated from these projects — they are inextricable from each other. What critics of the emotional response are missing is not evidence of concrete action. It is basic empathy. Students and faculty who have called for a “civil” discussion of these issues have not “elevated” our discourse, but couched it in the language of respectability politics. They have not merely limited the scope of acceptable perspectives to those that omit real emotional trauma. They have also ignored the ugly truth that the fears of marginalized students are perfectly rational.
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love a good argument. In fact that’s the reason I decided to apply to Yale. When I was first visiting colleges, Yale stood out to me as a place with a unique intellectual spirit. During my visit to New Haven, I noticed students constantly engaged in lively discussions. I wanted nothing more than to take part in that dialogue. When I first arrived here last August, I was immediately impressed with Yale’s commitment to intelligent discussion. The renaming of Calhoun College consumed much of the campus-centric debate during those first months, starting with the convocation speeches Dean Jonathan Holloway and President Peter Salovey delivered to me and my freshman peers. I admired these men for presenting the issue and opening up a campuswide discussion to determine the best
Policing emotion
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT F&ES students demand search involvement
“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” BLAISE PASCAL FRENCH MATHEMATICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER
Racist call received AF-AM FROM PAGE 1 Chief of Yale Police Michael Patten said the phone call was truly concerning. The YPD is investigating and taking appropriate precautions, he wrote in an email to the News. Goldsby said she was especially concerned because this is not the first time the department has received phone calls of this sort. In October 2013, the words “Race War Now” were found graffitied on a bathroom wall in the African American Studies department. Goldsby said based on past experience, involving the police was the appropri-
ate decision so that students and faculty can use the building for learning and thinking without worrying about their safety. According to History, American Studies and African American Studies professor Glenda Gilmore, Goldsby has been in close touch with the faculty and staff and informed them that they will be able to conduct their teaching as usual in the coming days. The call comes at a time of heightened racial tensions at universities across the nation. In the wake of a string of student rallies calling on universities to address systemic racism, the national
AMANDA FARRELL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Over a third of F&ES students signed the letter to Salovey requesting representation for the dean’s search. SEARCH FROM PAGE 1 search process,” the letter read. “It is our hope you believe that the future environmental leaders of tomorrow are also capable to have a substantive role in searching for the dean of their School.” Burow said student participation on the F&ES dean search committee is a simple issue of equity. Students feel strongly that they should be able to meaningfully participate in the process, and there is a precedent for their doing so successfully, he added. He added that students have an important perspective to contribute and the search committee stands to benefit from student involvement. He said that the University is supposed to be a space for inclusive participation and that allowing student involvement on the committee seems like a clear and easy way to support this principle in practice. Nina Dewi Horstmann FES ’16 said that the F&ES administration had raised the concern that, were a student to be involved with the committee, the student might not keep the committee’s affairs confidential. She said that the issue has been framed as a confidentiality problem, but that students can keep information as confidential as faculty members can. Salovey announced in an email Thursday that of the seven faculty members on the committee, three are women, including the chair. Geography and urbanization science professor, Associate Dean of Research and committee chair Karen Seto said the committee will prioritize listening to student and alumni voices in the selection process through a series of open houses and other efforts. She said that the com-
mittee’s efforts to engage students in the decision-making process would likely not include substantially different avenues of student input than past dean’s search committees. “The committee hasn’t met yet, but it is my priority to hear from a diverse set of voices — staff, faculty, current students, alums, friends of F&ES — about the qualities we need to look for in the next dean of the school,” Seto said. “One of the things we’ll look for is someone who can lead a very diverse school. We probably have one of, if not the most, diverse faculty of all the professional schools.” Seto outlined the diversity of viewpoints among the faculty, from climate justice attorneys to research scientists, and she suggested that an ideal candidate for the job would be someone capable of communicating well with both theoretical researchfocused and more hands-on parts of the school. “Candidates for the dean will need to not only respect this range of perspectives but also enable it,” she added. With regard to racial and gender diversity among the faculty, Seto suggested that the committee would consider complaints from students that the faculty is disproportionately white and male, but had no intention to substantially narrow its search for qualified candidates in order to lessen the gender and racial disparities in the school’s faculty. Of the 49 faculty currently employed at F&ES, 44 are white, three are Asian, one is Black and one is Hispanic. Out of 49, 36 are male and 13 are female. Seto added that she did not want the committee to restrict consideration of candidates for dean to people from certain backgrounds, particularly because she doubts that a change
in the ethnicity or gender of the dean would substantially shift any of the broader cultural issues some students want to change. On Tuesday at a town hall forum, Crane announced that students would not be included on the dean’s search committee. Myles Lennon, a second-year Ph.D. student at F&ES, described the administration’s decision not to provide a formal codified role for students in the selection process as “inexplicable.” He said the dean plays a very important role at the school, from overseeing faculty recruitment to shaping administrative decisions, and that it makes no sense that students will not be represented. However, Lennon added that he and some students do not believe that the decision on the makeup of the selection committee is necessarily final. “An expectation among many is that just because there was an announcement does not mean that there is not the possibility of changing things,” he said. “There is every reason in the world for students to be represented in the decision of the school that they have invested their lives in for a few years and no reason why the president can’t create a formal space for student representation.” He added that there was a “sense of incredulity” among F&ES students about the decision. In a Thursday email to F&ES faculty and staff, Crane called for a meeting to be held at 11 a.m. Friday to hear from Seto about the search process and about how the F&ES community can engage “most productively” in the process. Contact PADDY GAVIN at paddy.gavin@yale.edu and BRENDAN HELLWEG at brendan.hellweg@yale.edu .
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media has reported multiple threats to black students and faculty. On Wednesday, a white college student was arrested in Missouri for allegedly posting online threats to shoot black students and faculty at the University of Missouri. Yesterday, students at Howard University received a death threat from an anonymous student at the University of Missouri. Howard University officials have said that they are working with campus, local and federal law enforcement on the matter. Contact SARA SEYMOUR at sara.seymour@yale.edu and VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 5
NEWS
“The great thing about McDonald’s is that they have a lot of different things on the menu. I love their salads.” BEYONCÉ
CORRECTIONS WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11
A previous version of the article “Racist signs found on Old Campus” attributed unauthorized comments to Risë Nelson, director of the Afro-American Cultural Center. The News regrets the error. THURSDAY, NOV. 12
A previous version of the article “Race teach-in draws large crowd” truncated a quotation from University President Peter Salovey.
Ronald McDonald House to expand BY AGNES ENKHTAMIR CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Connecticut chapter of the Ronald McDonald House Charity — a nonprofit that provides housing for families with a child undergoing medical treatment far from home — will triple its current maximum capacity by 2025, when its new building opens across the street from Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. Currently, the Ronald McDonald House owns a building on 501 George St. that can house up to 25 families. When Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital donated an acre of land on Howard Avenue to the charity earlier this year, the charity decided to increase its capacity. The lot YNHCH donated contains two historic buildings which will be demolished to make way for the new Ronald McDonald House. “[Parents] don’t want to leave a sick child alone for too long in a hospital. That’s why we’re building the house so close,” said Stocky Clark, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the Ronald McDonald House Charity. “They just need to walk across the street to shower and do some business.” The new Ronald McDonald House, estimated to cost $11.2 million, will be completed in three phases. The first phase, beginning next month, will involve the demolition of one of the two historic buildings and the creation of 18 bedrooms and two respite rooms in the new location. After phase one is completed in May 2017, phase two, which will involve a three-year relocation from the organization’s current George Street address to Howard Avenue, will begin. During the final stage of the process, the remaining building in the donated lot will be demolished and 24 more bedrooms will be added to the Howard Avenue building. With 42 bedrooms, the new building will enable the Ronald
McDonald House to provide more families with short- and longterm housing close to where their child is receiving treatment. YNHCH also bought the Ronald McDonald House Charity’s George Street property, bringing the total value of the hospital’s gift to the charity to $2 million, said Stephen Merz, vice president and executive director of behavioral health at the Hospital. Clark said YNHCH will convert the George Street property into conference rooms and offices for lease, to partially subsidize the building costs of the Howard Avenue property. Currently, the charity’s George Street property has a $30,000 monthly operating cost. Each family staying at the house is asked to donate $15 a night to the charity, but families who cannot afford this can stay for free, Clark said. He said the Ronald McDonald House is not a hotel, and that donations only bring the charity $20,000 a year. The Howard Avenue building will resemble its predecessor, with a homey and not hotel-like interior design, Clark said. Barry Svigals ’71 ARC ’76, the architect at Svigals and Partners designing the building, said the building will have large windows in order to allow natural light to fill the building and to expose it to nature. “The new facility is designed with a welcoming entrance filled with greenery and trees,” Svigals said. The Ronald McDonald House must now find 20 to 40 volunteers to support the daily operations of the house, Clark said. He added that Yale students are welcome to volunteer as individuals and in groups to help cook meals and lend a hand with other household tasks. The Ronald McDonald House on George Street was built in 1985. Contact AGNES ENKHTAMIR at dulguun.enkhtamir@yale.edu .
Govt. bond concerns Yale-NUS students BY QI XU STAFF REPORTER When Raeden Richardson YNUS ’17 signed his Tuition Grant Agreement at the beginning of his freshman year at Yale-NUS, he knew his postcollege life would change. Richardson, who is from Australia, had applied for Singapore’s Tuition Grant Scheme, a program introduced by the Singaporean government in 1980 that heavily subsidizes the cost of higher education in the country — but with strings attached. While Singaporean citizens can enroll in the TGS at no expense, international students and Singaporean permanent residents who take up the grant are bound by a three-year service obligation upon graduation, meaning they are required to work at a Singapore-registered company immediately after finishing college. Those who do not apply for the government subsidy — and therefore are bound by no obligation — must pay a supplementary fee of S$16,800 ($11,838) per year in lieu of the grant. This amount constitutes twothirds of Yale-NUS’ aftergrant tuition fee for Singapore permanent residents, and almost half of that for international students. Interim Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid at Yale-NUS Linette Lim said most students find the TGS attractive because it significantly reduces the cost of a Yale-NUS education, but students interviewed said the program’s requirements were not were clearly stated in their online admissions offers and financial aid letters. “The Tuition Grant offers an opportunity to attend YaleNUS College at a subsidized rate and helps to maintain Yale-NUS’ affordability to all students,” Lim said. “How a student chooses to finance his or her education, either through the Tuition Grant Scheme, financial aid, loans or personal financial resources, is a personal decision.” Lim added that the majority of the college’s Singaporean permanent residents and international students have opted for the Tuition Grant Scheme. The school provides a loan program for students who do not want the TGS but cannot afford the supplementary fee, and students also have the option of applying for Yale-NUS’ financial aid independent from the TGS. International students make up 40
percent of the student body at Yale-NUS. Lim declined to comment on the percentage of YaleNUS students enrolled in the TGS, as well as the percentage of those who take up loans to finance their supplementary fee. She said students are informed of the TGS through Yale-NUS’ financial aid website, admission packets and informational seminars at the time of admission and the time of matriculation. Of the eight international students interviewed, all of whom opted for the TGS, three said they were aware of the program when they applied to Yale-NUS. The rest learned of the program either through mailed admission packets or Experience Yale-NUS Weekend, a two-day event for admitted students to visit and explore the school. “Though I was very excited to be admitted to YaleNUS and to find the generous financial aid package, the Tuition Grant Scheme was a surprise,” Richardson said. “It was added to the offer without being made clear until later, when reading through the financial aid documents that were mailed from Singapore to Melbourne. Once I read these documents, the Scheme was explained clearly and I understood the gravity of signing onto Yale-NUS.” Silvia Lara YNUS ’18 said Yale-NUS does not hold a formal session explaining the TGS to students, and that the college omitted some details of the program during its informal presentation to admitted students. Lara said the school told her she could defer the three-year bond if she wished to attend graduate school, but did not tell her about the compulsory Banker’s Guarantee she would have to pay as a deposit if she applied for the deferment. Students who wish to postpone their three-year service obligation for study in master’s or doctoral degree programs need to apply for the deferral, which is subject to the approval of Singapore’s Ministry of Education on a case-by-case basis. The Banker’s Guarantee equates to the total sum of the grants received by a student from the government plus 10 percent annual compound interest, and is kept as a deposit during graduate education. “This is a very important detail for people like me who need a Ph.D. for their intended career,” Lara said. “As of now,
I am quite worried about my professional future.” Though the details of the agreement are somewhat confusing, students can find all of the TGS’ conditions on the Ministry of Education’s website. Francesca Maviglia YNUS ’19 said Yale-NUS was very responsive whenever she asked for clarifications on the terms of the agreement. Hyung-Seok John Kim YNUS ’19 agreed that the presentation of the TGS given at Experience Yale-NUS Weekend was not thorough and detailed, adding that most of what he knew about the program came from his own research by looking at the TGS website and asking other already enrolled international students about it. Lim said that even after accounting for the Tuition Grant, Yale-NUS is much more affordable for international students than most peer institutions in the United States. The school has a very good record of attracting top international students to Yale-NUS, helped in part by its generous overall financial aid packages, Lim added.
As of now, I am quite worried about my professional future. SILVIA LARA YNUS ’18 But an international student who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue said that at U.S. colleges, students with good financial aid packages will not expect to be too deep in debt regardless of their post-graduation plans. At Yale-NUS, however, because need-based aid and meritbased scholarships only cover the portion of tuition not covered by TGS, any student who breaks the bond will be at least S$80,000 in debt, the student said. The TGS is reversible, meaning a student can opt out of the program even after signing up. Those who wish to do so have to pay for the grant money they have already received, plus a 10 percent annual compound interest rate. Therefore, if a student wishes to reverse the contract at the time of graduation, the student would need to pay at least S$80,000 in a lump sum to the Singapore government. All eight of the interna-
tional students interviewed signed the Tuition Grant Agreement, but two broke the contract after signing it. One student who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue said he ended up receiving a loan to buy back the three-year bond which would have limited his future plan to attend graduate schools. Adrian Stymne YNUS ’17 said he opted out of the contract this summer because of a change in his post-graduate plans and paid the fee through parental support and loans from the Swedish government. Students interviewed said the three-year bond could deter international students who do not plan to work in Singapore after graduation from attending school there. “[As] an international student, it is of course difficult to know coming in that you want to give not only four, but seven, of your most formative and decisive years to this country,” Stymne said. It was nonetheless an easy decision for him to sign the agreement, he said, because he knew he could break the bond if he chose to at any point. Martin Vasev YNUS ’18, an international student from Bulgaria, said he had “mixed feelings” when signing the agreement. He said the bond initially seemed restrictive because it meant legally tying three years of his future to Singapore. However, Vasev said that since Singapore is a country with good career opportunities, he would have stayed in Singapore after graduation regardless of whether he signed the agreement or not. Kim, a freshman from Korea, said the grant is appealing for students not only in need of additional tuition assistance, but also for those “dead set” on working in Singapore after graduation. He added that because he is interested in entering the pharmaceutical industry — a field in which Singapore has strong performance — the three-year service obligation is not a burden but rather an opportunity for him. Tuition at Yale-NUS for the next academic year is S$18,000 for Singapore citizens, S$25,200 for Singapore permanent residents and S$36,000 for international students. Contact QI XU at qi.xu@yale.edu .
State legislators call for “transportation lockbox” BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER As Hartford grapples with the budget deficit, a coalition of business groups and state legislators are calling for the state constitution to be amended to establish a “transportation lockbox.” The proposal for the lockbox — which would restrict the use of certain funds to transportation projects — first came before the General Assembly in Gov. Dannel Malloy’s biennial budget address in February. Since then, the proposal has taken a backseat to the more immediate matter of addressing the state’s significant budget gap. But as the state begins preparations for the General Assembly’s 2016 session, a group of legislators have come together to renew the push for the lockbox. Malloy has made transportation funding a priority in his second term as governor, vocally advocating for rail links to connect New Haven, Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts. His administration also launched the highly successful CTfastrak program on Mar. 28, a high-speed busway between Hartford and New Britain that is set to expand to East Hartford and Manchester. A transportation lockbox would set aside funds for transportation and prohibit their use for unrelated projects. Malloy ultimately seeks to invest $100 billion in state and federal funds in Connecticut infrastructure over the next 30 years. Much of the political support
for the lockbox comes from legislators and business associations in Fairfield County, where the economy’s reliance on access to New York has made transportation investment a pertinent issue. State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, a Democrat from the wealthy commuter town of Westport, has been a vocal advocate for increased transportation investment. He described himself as a “broken record” on the issue of transportation investment at a news conference in Hartford last week. Steinberg, a member of the state’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said the creation of a lockbox would signal to companies that Connecticut is serious about improving its transportation infrastructure. “What’s most important is that we create confidence that we have the funding necessary to meet the needs — the incredibly urgent and overdue needs for transportation infrastructure investment in the state of Connecticut,” Steinberg said at the news conference. “We believe the lockbox is the way to get started.” Steinberg added that the state has already committed to a $5 billion short-term funding package to fulfill necessary repairs and avoid the “crumbling” of the interstate highway system in Connecticut. State Sen. Steve Cassano, a Democrat from Manchester, said the lack of progress on transportation funding has disappointed him. He said the agenda of last week’s conference was the same
as the briefings he held as a member of the original Transportation Strategy Board in 1990. Cassano said infrastructure investment in Connecticut cannot proceed solely with state money. Instead, he said, the state will have to rely on some federal funding, with the availability of that funding determining the speed of progress on large-scale projects. The General Assembly has made some progress on transportation funding. In its session earlier this year, the Assembly approved a measure that will devote 0.5 percent of state sales tax revenues to transportation projects. But for transportation advocates, more action needs to be taken. Business interests have rallied behind the lockbox proposal, arguing the state has too often diverted transportation funding to other unrelated projects. Joseph McGee, vice president of the Business Council of Fairfield, said the lockbox would force Malloy and the General Assembly to keep their promises. “It’s really critical that we know that if we’re going to do this, the money is there — that the government said we’re going to do it, and then we spend the money on what we said we’re going to do,” he said in a separate news conference on Nov. 5. “The worst thing that happens, when people really lose confidence in government, is when there’s a bait-and-switch.” Joseph Brennan, president of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said transportation investment is neces-
BY THE NUMBERS TRAFFIC ON THE HIGHWAYS Highway Vehicle Travel Increase Population Increase
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sary to “keep our economy competitive,” adding that congestion on the state’s highways is holding Connecticut back. Mary Tomolonius, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Community Transportation, said protecting revenues earmarked for transportation is the only way to address increased congestion and failing infrastructure in the state’s commuter areas. Support for the lockbox is — at least in theory — a bipartisan effort. Cassano said a group of legislators from both sides of the aisle met with Malloy earlier in November in an attempt to work out a deal. Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, a Republican from North Haven, has also expressed his support for the lockbox, though he has criticized Democrats for their approach to establishing it. In a
Nov. 5 statement, he called the press conference a “political move to get headlines,” carried out by Democrats who could not get the lockbox into the budget passed by the legislature in June. Despite his criticism of Democrats, Fasano reaffirmed his backing for the proposal, adding that a constitutional amendment must be “clear” and “enforceable.” “There can be no wiggle room if we are serious about protecting transportation for the long haul,” he said in the statement. “In addition to a strong constitutional lockbox, our state also needs a realistic, predictable, reliable plan to fund transportation.” But some have called into question the enforceability of the lockbox. In a blog post late last month, legal scholar and attorney Dan Klau said state courts likely do not have the power to adjudicate mis-
uses of the lockbox. He wrote that the Connecticut Supreme Court is likely to treat disputes over the lockbox as political questions beyond its jurisdiction, resulting in a “legally meaningless” constitutional amendment. For now, passage of the transportation lockbox looks likely. Cassano said he expects the lockbox to be included in the package Malloy presents to the state legislature in 2016. Its passage as a constitutional amendment, though, may prove more difficult. The lockbox must be approved by a 75 percent majority of each chamber of the General Assembly to appear on the ballot in 2016. Contact NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH at noah.daponte-smith@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT
“Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.” GEORGE ORWELL BRITISH NOVELIST AND ESSAYIST
Students present new demands at President’s house DEMAND FROM PAGE 1 present at the gathering Thursday night, told the News that students put together these demands to reflect the desires of people of color across the Yale College community. “Originally, BSAY put our own set of demands together last-minute, but the movement has been about not just Black women, but women and people of color in general, so we wanted to bring together the different communities of people of color to craft more inclusive demands,” she said. “No one working on these demands were there representing an organization. It’s a coalition of people of color. It’s about all people of color, but women are at the center of it.” Salovey told the News that University leaders will “seriously” review the new set of demands and reiterated that a response to them will be issued next week. Salovey said he considers the manner by which the students delivered the demands entirely acceptable and in compliance with University policy. “This was a peaceful group
of students visiting me at my home at a somewhat late hour, completely consistent with University protest policy,” he said. Next Yale’s six demands each involved several parts. The first, which focuses on ethnic studies, demands that all Yale undergraduates be required to fulfill an ethnic studies distributional requirement and that the Ethnicity, Race and Migration Program be given departmental status immediately. The second demand centered on mental health services, a topic that has been prominent in campus discussions and forums over the past two weeks. Next Yale calls for the University to hire mental health professionals in each of the four cultural centers, as well as increased mental health professionals of color at Yale Mental Health and Counseling. Another demand asked for an increase of $2 million to the current annual operating budget of each cultural center, as well as five full-time staff members for each. The students also demanded that Calhoun College be
renamed and that the two new residential colleges be named after people of color. Under this demand, they also asked for the abolishment of the title “master” and the building of a monument on Cross Campus to acknowledge that Yale was founded on stolen indigenous land. After the gathering, Salovey told the News that decisions about renaming and naming residential colleges fall under the domain of the Yale Corporation, the governing board and policy-making body for Yale. The fifth demand, directly addressing recent racial controversies on campus, called for the removal of Nicholas and Erika Christakis from their administrative positions. The final demand focused on allocating resources to support the physical well-being of international, first-generation, lowincome and undocumented students. The ER&M major was established in 1997. Contact DAVID SHIMER at david.shimer@yale.edu and VICTOR WANG at v.wang@yale.edu .
KAIFENG WU/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The students’ demands included a call for Ethnicity, Race and Migration to be upgraded to departmental status.
Asian-Americans discuss role in campus debate AACC FROM PAGE 1 tions. These steps include creating opportunities for AsianAmericans to talk and learn about their identities as people of color, supporting the work of students at the other cultural centers, increasing the number of Asian-American faculty and Asian American Studies offerings, pushing for more mental health resources specific to Asian-American experiences and adding more professional staff to the AACC. It is important for Asian-American students not only to support each other but also to extend that support to their “sister communities” during these trying times, Dhall added, emphasizing that change results from a collective effort across the different cultural centers.
SILENCE AND THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH
Silence is a stereotype that confronts the Asian-American community, said Ho Kyeong Jang ’17, president of Korean American Students at Yale. AsianAmericans tend to work within a system as opposed to tackling it, and many are told by their families to simply work hard, overcome the challenges and achieve success in order to rise above the system, he said. Asian-Americans are very good at looking away, Jang added. “The model minority myth is a myth — it’s a construction that very deliberately portrays Asian-Americans as a minority that does not fight,” said Isra Syed ’16, one of the AACC’s program series co-coordinators. “Through hard work and stay-
ing silent, we are told, you’ll be able to rise through.” Syed said because of that myth, society often does not view AsianAmericans as “people of color,” and the myth has been used as a tool to divide different minority communities. According to Hiral Doshi ’17, the other AACC program series co-coordinator, there is a stereotype in the Asian-American community to “stay out of the fight,” especially since many are first-generation Americans in their Asian families. When students call their parents to explain the events that have shaken campus over the past two weeks, many parents tell their children that the practical solution is to keep their heads down and stay out of the conflict, Doshi said. One Asian-American woman who spoke during SPEAK said she had to use Google to find out whether Asian-Americans count as people of color and deserve to be part of the ongoing racial conversations, Doshi added. Titania Nguyen ’18, political chair of the Vietnamese Students Association at Yale and co-chair of the Asian American Studies Task Force, said she and other Asian-Americans did not know what it meant to be people of color for a long time. Often, Asian-Americans are marginalized by those with relative power who seek to perpetuate the model minority myth and use it to hurt and shame other people of color, Nguyen added. “This is why SPEAK was beautiful — we needed to come out and listen to each other and to all the narratives of people of color,” Nguyen said. “But SPEAK is just the beginning.”
Former AACC Peer Liaison Katherine Fang ’17 said she hopes SPEAK will lay the groundwork for what the community still has to accomplish. At the very least, Fang added, Asian-Americans do have a community that is trying to stand up for itself, and moving forward, that community hopes to build on the momentum that began at SPEAK.
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
When Jang heard the news that Anthropology and East Asian Studies professor Karen Nakamura GRD ’01 plans to leave Yale for University of California, Berkeley at the end of the semester, he was incredibly upset. Jang said Nakamura is one of his favorite professors at Yale, and he had originally planned on asking her to be his senior thesis adviser. “[Nakamura’s departure] is a failure on Yale’s part to retain one of the most prominent scholars of color and is a sign of the University’s arrogance that, given the chance, scholars will simply come and stay at Yale,” Jang said. Crystal Kong ’18, co-community development chair for the Asian American Students Alliance, told the News in October that Yale’s biggest issue is with retaining diversity in its faculty, as opposed to attracting and hiring. Jang said the University’s inability to retain faculty of color goes hand-in-hand with the shortage of ethnic studies courses and departments. Asian American Studies, for example, is not an official University department, nor is Ethnicity, Race and Migration. This means these programs cannot hire their
own faculty. “It’s a catch-22 cycle — if you don’t have the appropriate resources, students aren’t attracted [to Asian American Studies], and faculty sense a lack of interest among the students at Yale,” Doshi said. “At the end of the day, faculty retention and Asian American Studies are one thing.” According to Syed, “AsianAmerican” is a term used to describe diverse group of people who can trace their ancestry back to a large geographical region. Not all Asian-Americans have had the opportunity to learn about their history and engage critically in their roles as people of color, she added. The reason why one student had to rely on Google to discover that Asian-Americans are indeed considered people of color comes in part because of scarcity of Asian American Studies classes offered at Yale, Syed said. Increased funding for faculty and a department could be one important way to improve the status quo, she said. Mary Lui, master of Timothy Dwight College and Yale’s first tenured Asian American Studies professor, said it is important to remember that the demand for increased ethnic studies is not a new struggle. “Although Asian-Americans are currently the largest minority group at Yale, many clearly felt they were invisible on this campus and struggled with how to be heard [at SPEAK],” Lui said. “It was both frustrating and sobering to hear as the struggle by Asian-American students on campus to be heard has been ongoing since the early 1970s
when Black, Asian, Latino and Native American students joined together to push for academic inclusion.” The first journal in the field of Asian American Studies was founded by Yale students, Lui said, adding that it is unfortunate that students continue to feel marginalized on campus 40 years after the first calls for ethnic studies. Additionally, Fang said efforts to redress erroneous ethnic perceptions should not be confined to just the ethnic studies departments. “The next step would be for faculty [in all departments] to examine their syllabi and see how they have included or erased Asian-Americans in their presentation of the materials, especially in the social sciences and history,” she said.
MENTAL HEALTH AND BEYOND
Many Asian-Americans lack an understanding of what mental health means, Jang said, referring to both the community at Yale as well as to his family, friends and relatives at home. Because the community tends to stigmatize mental health issues, Jang added that Asian-Americans are more prone to confront problems like depression than members of other communities, especially when there is no outlet for what he called their “pain of displacement.” Even a small issue such as changing majors, Doshi said, could be especially mentally taxing for Asian-Americans, as those students often face cultural, personal and familial pressures against switching, especially
when the jump is from STEM to the humanities. One solution, Syed said, is for Mental Health and Counseling to hire more staff of color, as well as counselors trained in providing care for minority students. It would be even better to have one or two mental health professionals on staff in the cultural centers, she added. Last week, the Black Student Alliance at Yale released a list of student demands for University administrators, including training for incoming freshmen about cultural sensitivity. Fang said such training would be important because Asian Americans and other people of color are often subjected to microagressions from other community members. Being mindful of the unique experiences of these students is essential to Asian American student wellness, she said. “I think good mental health for Asian [American] students is conceptually similar to that for other students of color. Many aspects of clinical treatment are standard for all students, while cultural and ethnic sensitivity provide additional benefits,” Marvin Chun, psychology professor and Master of Berkeley College, told the News. “Mental health is not just about seeing clinicians. It is deeply important to have strong communities and family support.” Currently, AASA is drafting a list of demands which correspond to those released by BSAY, though these will be more catered to the Asian-American community. Contact MONICA WANG at monica.wang@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
NEWS
“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.” W. H. AUDEN ANGLO-AMERICAN POET
Law School opens health law center BY QI XU STAFF REPORTER Yale Law School officially opened the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy Thursday afternoon. Established by the donation of Howard Solomon LAW ’52, former CEO of the pharmaceutical company Forest Laboratories, the center will focus on the governance, business and practice of health care in the United States. The launch event featured a keynote address given by former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and drew more than 200 students, alumni and healthcare practitioners. “The center is wildly ambitious. It is the first law school center of its kind, to focus on intersections of health law, government, industry and practice of medicine,” Law School Dean Robert Post said in the opening address. He added that the center’s interdisciplinary approach to health care and policy makes it unique. Post added that the center’s opening marked a special moment in the school’s near 200-year history as it celebrates the launch of something “entirely new.” Director of the Solomon Center and Law School professor Abbe Gluck gave a brief remark following Post’s speech. Gluck said American law schools took a long time to recognize the significance of health law to their curriculums
and that health law had not been introduced to law schools until very recently. Despite opening officially just on Thursday, the center has already undertaken several initiatives, Post said. The center held a major conference on the 50th anniversary of Medicare earlier this month, helped expand course offerings in fields related to health law at the law school and launched a community lawyer program in which law school students are able to work alongside doctors. Sebelius, who was introduced by the CEO of Yale-New Haven Hospital Marna Borgstrom, gave a 30-minute address explaining the changes in the health care industry since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, as well as future trends facing the industry. In her speech, Sebelius said the inflation rate of health care in the US is the lowest it has been in 50 years, and that the current rate is well-below that before the ACA was introduced. Before the ACA was passed, the inflation rate of health care in America was twice the growth rate of the GDP. Nathan Guevremont LAW ’18 said the most interesting part of the launch event was that it provided shuttles to transport students from the School of Medicine and the School of Management to join the event. Students from outside the Law School contribute a variety of perspectives, Guevre-
mont said. Roshan Rahnama SOM’16 said the keynote speech was inspiring. “I’ve been involved in U.S. health care policy for close to a decade and having the opportunity to hear about the implementation of health care reform — the ACA — from the forefront person who has pushed this legislation forward, it has been truly inspirational,” said Rahnama, who currently works as a health care consultant.
The center is wildly ambitious. It is the first law school center of its kind. ROBERT POST Dean, Yale Law School Camella Boateng, an audience member who works at the health care consulting firm Strategic Management Services, LLC, said it is inspiring to see Yale being innovative and aligning health care law and policy. This is the step in the right direction in reforming U.S. health care, she said. The center’s launch will continue with a conference on the U.S. health care industry today. Contact QI XU at qi.xu@yale.edu .
Antillean Manor under repair BY SARA TABIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER With its paint peeling and its railings rusted, the Antillean Manor stands in disrepair on Day Street. But almost three weeks after New Haven issued an emergency order for its repair, residents say they have mixed feelings about what has been done so far. The Antillean Manor, an affordable housing complex, was once run by private cooperative, but its management changed hands after residents reported that co-op officials had been absent for years. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development now pays private company Carabetta Management Co. a stipend to maintain the affordable housing complex. In an October inspection of Antillean Manor, New Haven Building Department Technical Compliance Officer Jim Turcio found that the complex’s walkways and guard rail systems violated building codes. Immediately following the inspection, he issued an order for emergency repairs to the outside of the complex. Since the order, Carabetta Management has been facilitating repairs to the building’s exterior, as well as
addressing residents’ complaints of leaks and mold. As repair teams continue work on the complex, building residents say that the repairs are long overdue. “This should’ve happened before I even moved in here,” Antillean Manor resident Nicole Jackson said. “This building is raggedy, it’s falling apart, and it’s just never been up kept, no matter how many letters we wrote to HUD.” Turcio said the complex was in worse condition than many buildings in New Haven due to a lack of maintenance. He said the complex has the same issues it did during the last building inspection in 2001, including unsafe walkways. Turcio said the city will conduct more inspections as the team progresses in its repairs. Although his inspection was focused on external building code issues, repair crews made additional internal and external repairs. The entire building was washed and some sections are being painted, Turcio said. Carabetta Management Regional Manager Aldo Parnasso directs the team renovating the building. But he said in an email he was unaware of repair orders from the city and noted
that repairs are happening because of problems the company uncovered during an annual inspection. Parnasso said that in addition to the annual inspection, Carabetta Management expects residents to call in maintenance issues as they happen. “Every year we inspect all the apartments for any deficiencies,” Parnasso said. “So our inspections took place here in October, and our inhouse inspectors noticed some of the deficiencies and that’s why we are here.” Parnasso said his inspectors noticed “routine” household deficiencies, such as water leaks. He said he expects the repair crews to work on Antillean Manor for another eight days. Jackson said although the renovations were long overdue and repairs should have been made before she moved in eight years ago, she remains optimistic about the state of renovations. “I had mold everywhere; now it’s gone,” Jackson said. “It’s a positive change. They’re fixing things up.” Antillean Manor is located in Connecticut’s third Congressional district. Contact SARA TABIN at sara.tabin@yale.edu .
Remnick offers advice to young writers BY MAYA CHANDRA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER David Remnick, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and editor-inchief of The New Yorker magazine, spent Thursday evening at Branford College discussing his career, his writing and the importance of good coffee. The master’s tea, which drew a crowd large enough to fill the entirety of the Branford Common Room, was structured in a traditional question-and-answer format hosted by English professor Fred Strebeigh. For about an hour, students, faculty and alumni asked Remnick about his trajectory from Princeton student, to Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, to staff writer and later editor-in-chief of The New Yorker. The room was filled with aspiring writers full of questions on how to transition from college student to successful journalist. Remnick described how he once took a position as a sports reporter at the Washington Post before going to Moscow, despite sports not being his area of expertise. “My best advice to young reporters would be: anytime someone in the business asks you, ‘Do you know anything about [any topic] … ?’— whatever it is, your answer should be, ‘Absolutely!’” Remnick said, eliciting laughter from the audience. Remnick emphasized the combination of luck, flexibility and hard work that have defined his career. For example, he said, he
earned a C+ and D while enrolled in Russian classes at Princeton, yet a few years later found himself headed to Russia for the Washington Post. In addition, when he was promoted to editor of The New Yorker in 1998, Remnick said, the last time he had been an editor of anything was for his high school publication, the Pascack Valley High School Smoke Signal — which had, he added, “the most politically stupid name you could come up with.” “What I’m trying to say is that you’re like a ball in a pinball machine,” he said. “There’s no magic formula for this stuff.” In addition to answering questions about his own life, Remnick discussed The New Yorker and how the magazine continues to be an eccentric collection of a variety of forms of writing and media, as well as a source of news. As the magazine increases its online presence, it has welcomed a new breed of writers: while some New Yorker writers still write for print, immersing themselves in long projects for months at a time and then undergoing a fastidious editing process, others are drawn to the allure of online media and the immediate response to their work, Remnick said. He called The New Yorker an “oddball mixture,” where readers can find gag cartoons in the middle of 10,000-word pieces about Syria. “There’s something magical about the whole recipe,” he said. “There’s something eccentri-
yale institute of sacred music presents
Guest Ensembles in Marquand Chapel 409 Prospect St., New Haven
Sunday, November 15 · 7:30 pm
heinavanker
Estonian folk hymns and liturgical melodies
Thursday, November 19 · 7:30 pm
dialogos
Swithun! One Saint, Three Furies, and a Thousand Miracles from Winchester c. 1000 Both events are free; no tickets required. Free parking. ism.yale.edu
Fill this space. JOIN@YALEDAILYNEWS.COM
ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
After a master’s tea, David Remnick critiqued student work published in Yale publications. cally wonderful.” The talk ended on a serious note, when a student questioned Remnick about how attending an institution like Yale affects individuals’ future prospects in journalism. Remnick, in a somber moment that contrasted with the fairly spirited and often humorous tone of the rest of the talk, told listeners about his parents’ disabilities growing up and his youngest child’s autism. Life brings what it brings, Remnick said, and he emphasized the importance of
going to places not so much like Yale. Attendees interviewed after the talk praised Remnick for connecting his personal narrative to his journalism career. Anstress Farwell GRD ’78 said she has been a reader of The New Yorker since she was an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut. She agreed with Remnick’s description of The New Yorker as housing a diversity of voices. She added that the magazine has always been eccentric, but
that its eccentricity has changed over the years. It is no longer as whimsical or sarcastic as it used to be, she said, but she said she actually prefers the newer style under Remnick. “There’s such a variety of things; he’s right about that,” Farwell said. “They start with the short [pieces], there’s very serious thought-provoking things — that variety of voices is great.” After the talk concluded, Remnick hosted another event, in which he critiqued student articles
from The Yale Daily News Magazine, The Politic, The Yale Scientific, The Globalist, The Yale Herald and The New Journal, whose editors had all submitted one piece. Strebeigh said Remnick’s commentary was the fourth such event involving an expert commenting on students’ work, with the first featuring James Bennet, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Contact MAYA CHANDRA at maya.chandra@yale.edu .
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
SPORTS
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” MICHAEL JORDAN NBA GREAT
Two 5–3 squads take part in historic rivalry KEYS TO THE GAME FOOTBALL FROM PAGE 10
BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER The Yale football team hits the road for the final time this season, heading to New Jersey to take on Princeton for the 138th meeting between the two teams. Coming off a game in which the Bulldogs dominated Brown and snapped a two-game losing streak, the team looks to maintain momentum before taking on undefeated Harvard in The Game. If the Elis can cut down on penalties, dominate the line of scrimmage from both sides and improve red-zone efficiency, they can leave Princeton with a win and a 0.500 league record.
LIMIT THE FLAGS
Penalties have been an issue for Yale all season. After drawing 40 penalties in their first four games, the Elis marginally cleaned up their act, drawing 32 flags in the subsequent four games. The team took a big step backwards against Brown, picking up nine of its 10 penalties in the first half. Those 10 penalties cost the Bulldogs 81 yards against the Bears, one reason that Brown trailed by just three points entering the locker room. Ceding that amount of yardage will significantly diminish Yale’s chances against Princeton and Harvard, two stronger teams. According to defensive tackle Carl Kreitzberg ’16, the Elis distinguish between “stupid pen-
alties,” such as too many men on the field or late-hit penalties, and “aggressive penalties,” like holding or pass interference. But rather than focusing on a specific type of penalty, it will be important for Yale just to eliminate them altogether and play a cleaner game.
DOMINATE IN THE TRENCHES
The Yale offensive line has been beset by a number of injuries, and as a result, the Bulldogs rank second-to-last in the Ivy League in sacks allowed. The line took a major step up last week, allowing just one sack on quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 — a major factor in Roberts achieving his second-best completion percentage of the season. Against a Tiger defense that has 19 sacks on the season, a strong performance from the offensive line will be critical. Additionally, with Yale’s conversion of cornerback Dale Harris ’17 to running back providing a spark for the offense last week, successful blocking for the junior could easily turn a small gain into a big play. On the other side of the ball, the Yale defense has thrived on linebacker blitzes: 10 of the Bulldogs’ 16 sacks in 2015 have come from its linebackers. That lack of aggressiveness from the defensive line, however, could be helpful when it comes to stopping the best rushing attack in the Ancient Eight, which fea-
tures five Princeton players who average at least five yards per carry.
IMPROVE RED-ZONE EFFICIENCY
A hallmark of last year’s Yale squad was its ability to score in the red zone, as the Bulldogs put points on the scoreboard 83.6 percent of the time after crossing their opponent’s 20-yardline. While running back Tyler Varga ’15 gets the lion’s share of the credit, it should be noted that kicker Kyle Cazzetta ’15 converted 13 of 16 attempts as well. But fast forward a year later, and the Elis’ efficiency has dropped to just 72.7 percent in the red zone. New kicker Bryan Holmes ’17 has put through eight of his 11 kicks when the ball is snapped from inside the 20, but it is perhaps more worrying that the team has scored touchdowns on just 48 percent of redzone opportunities, compared to 62 percent in 2014. Much of that has been due to five interceptions thrown in the red zone, although this has been less of an issue in recent weeks. Princeton has already allowed opposing teams into its red zone 36 times this season, the third-most in the Ivy League, so opportunities seem to be available. The Bulldogs just need to take advantage of them. Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .
Reno and the rest of the players on offense were behind me,” Williams-Lopez said. “Day by day, I was able to get back in the offense … Each game, I’ve gotten more comfortable.” After succeeding against the second-worst passing defense in the Ivy League, Roberts and his receivers can look forward to another potential big day in New Jersey. The only team with a passing defense that has posted a weaker performance than Brown is Princeton, which yields an average of 280.9 yards to opposing quarterbacks. Still, Reno cautioned against counting out Princeton, a team that starts three seniors in the secondary. “Defensively, they’re an aggressive front,” Reno said. “Their front seven is very aggressive and they’ve got a senior-laden secondary with guys who’ve played a lot of football. They’re very physical so they’re a good team. We’re going to really have to play well to get the outcome that we want.” The same goes for the Yale defense, which has averaged 15.5 points allowed during the past two weeks but face a new challenge on Saturday. The Tigers enter the game averaging 31.8 points per contest, third-best in the Ivy League. Though Princeton opened the season as the only Ivy League team without an experienced quarterback on its roster, Reno pointed out that the Tigers run similar schemes to their 2014 squad.
DANIELA BRIGHENTI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Yale defense has averaged just 15.5 points allowed per game over the past two weeks of the season. “One of the reasons I think we’re seeing this consistent growth is just that guys are finally consistently capturing that mental execution.” Like last year, Yale and Princeton enter their matchup with the same record in league play. Though the 2014 contest served as an elimination game for the Bulldogs and Tigers, each of whom had lost one conference game at that point, this year does not hold the same significance. With an undefeated Harvard team and a one-loss Dartmouth squad still in the mix, neither Yale nor Princeton can earn a share of the title without help. Yale does, however, have a chance to secure an overall record above 0.500 with its sixth win of the season. The 138th matchup between the Yale and Princeton football teams is slated to kick off at 1 p.m. The game will be available for streaming on the Ivy League Digital Network.
“They’re going to present a lot of different formations and personnel groupings that we haven’t seen all year,” Reno said. “They’ve got two quarterbacks who can really hurt you on the field at the same time, a very good running game.” With regard to limiting offenses with strong quarterbacks, the Eli defense appears to be in its best position to do so all year after limiting Brown, the league’s most potent passing offense, to 207 yards through the air — almost 150 yards fewer than the team’s average — and picking off three passes. Despite a few blown coverages that resulted in Brown’s two touchdowns last week, Kreitzberg pointed out that the defense has steadily improved over the course of the season. “I’ve seen a lot of defenses come and go in my time here with Coach Reno, and I think hands down this unit is the most physically gifted, talented football group that I’ve ever seen,” Kreitzberg said.
Contact MAYA SWEEDLER at maya.sweedler@yale.edu .
Undefeated start to be tested MEN’S HOCKEY FROM PAGE 10
DANIELA BRIGHENTI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Forward Mike Doherty ’17 is second on the team in goals, assists and points through the season’s first four games.
Thanks to three ECAC wins, RPI is currently tied at the top of the conference with Harvard, far exceeding the preseason coaches’ poll prediction of a 10th-place finish, though it is still very early in the season. The Elis have had a successful recent history against RPI, not dropping a game against the Engineers since the 2012–13 season. Yale won the last three contests between the two schools by a margin of three goals or more. While RPI has gotten off to a quick start in conference play, Union has stumbled thus far in its conference campaign. The Dutch-
Must-win scenario
men lost their first three games in league play and are currently sporting a losing record after 10 games for the first time since 2007. However, the Dutchmen snapped their winless stretch in league play last weekend, trumping Clarkson 4–1 at home on Saturday. Sophomore forward Ryan Scarfo leads the Dutchmen in goals this season, tied with RPI’s Riley Bourbonnais as the second-highest scorer in the ECAC. They have each lit the lamp five times. Limiting Scarfo, a consistent pointearner, will be key for Yale, which has lost five of its last six meetings against Union. “We are sticking to our normal routine in practice,” forward Ryan
Hitchcock ’18 said. “We know we control our own destiny and as long as we’re working as hard as we possibly can and push each other in practice that will carry over nicely into this weekend. We know that RPI and Union are going to be great tests.” While last weekend’s matches demonstrated the early-season resiliency of the Elis, including an overtime tie with their biggest rivals, Yale’s first period play left a lot to be desired. Of the team’s 15 goals to date, only three have been scored in the first period, all of which were from the Capital City Classic in the opening weekend. Although Yale ultimately came away with satisfying results
MEN’S SOCCER FROM PAGE 10
close fashion before succumbing by lopsided margins in the final set. Harvard will be led by setter Corinne Bain — the two-time unanimous All-Ivy first teamer leads the team in kills and assists, and is second in digs — while Dartmouth is headed by Emily Astarita, an outside hitter who leads the Ivy League in kills. But neither standout performer has amassed the sort of championship experience that Yale’s senior class has in its time in New Haven. For the Bulldogs’ five talented seniors, these two matches mark the final conference contests of their careers. While this season may not end with the lifting of a championship trophy as have the past three, a match against the archrival Crimson nonetheless provides a dramatic final stage for Yale’s crop of veterans. “There’s definitely added emotion,” Ebner said. “Standings and records do not matter when we play Harvard. We will always be amped for this match, and we’re chomping at the bit to compete.” Whether the Bulldogs win both matches this weekend, these matches provide an opportunity to not only offer their seniors a positive farewell but also additional glimpses into the future for Yale’s younger members. As the team’s injury troubles this season, such as the loss of two-year starter and libero Tori Shepherd ’17, have hurt its
stands at the top of the Ivy League with 32 goals, led primarily by forward Thomas Sanner, who has dominated the conference with 12 goals — twice as many as any other Ivy player has scored, and just one fewer than Yale’s total as a whole. Sanner currently stands at seventh in all of NCAA Division I with 0.75 goals per game. His teammate, midfielder Brendan McSherry, is second in the Ancient Eight with six goals, proving that both players, as well as the rest of the Princeton offense, will be a challenge for the Bulldogs. Yale, meanwhile, has struggled defensively, ranking last in the Ivy League with 2.1 goals allowed thus far. Against a Princeton defense that has allowed 1.4 goals per game — fifth in the conference — a key for the Bulldogs in overcoming the Tigers’ attack may be an offensive surge of Yale’s own. That has not happened for much of the season, however, as Yale has scored more than one goal just twice this season, and neither of those performances came in the last seven games. “Princeton will be another tough Ivy League game,” midfielder Nicky Downs ’19 said. “We are trying to stay relaxed and just play, because at this point there is no pressure on
Yale must win both games this weekend to keep its Ivy title hopes alive. chances at extending its dominant title run, they have also tested the team’s depth and provided some valuable playing time for others on the roster. “Every season comes with challenges,” setter and three-time All-Ivy first-teamer Kelly Johnson ’16 said. “We had injuries this year that set us back and took out some key players. But even that led to numerous people stepping up and playing great at different times throughout the season.” For now, though, the Bulldogs remain focused on the task at
hand and on keeping their slight title hopes alive. The action from Payne Whitney Gymnasium against the Crimson will begin at 7 p.m. Friday night. Saturday’s affair against the Big Green, the final home contest of the season, will also include a pregame ceremony honoring the team’s five seniors — Ebner, Johnson, Fuller, middle blocker Maya Midzik ’16 and libero Christine Wu ’16. Contact JONATHAN MARX at jonathan.marx@yale.edu .
Contact HOPE ALLCHIN at hope.allchin@yale.edu .
Season finale on tap
VOLLEYBALL FROM PAGE 10
ERIN WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
despite the slow starts and being outshot 66–56 over the weekend, the team recognizes it cannot afford to continue that trend. “I think we’ve got to fix that,” forward Mike Doherty ’17 said of the team’s first-period struggles after the Harvard game. “We came out slow [in] every game this year so far, so I think that’s an area we’ll look at. Maybe some jitters — [it was our] first real huge game of the year.” After this upcoming road weekend, Yale will return to Ingalls Rink for its home opener on Nov. 20 against Cornell.
us, so hopefully that will play to our advantage. We expect it to be another battle, but we are confident we can get the result and finish the season out on a high note.” The Tigers also enter the game with limited pressure on their shoulders, and certainly less pressure than their last contest with Yale. Last year at Reese Stadium, Princeton’s 1–0 win over Yale clinched a share of the Tigers’
Ivy League championship with Dartmouth. This year, the Big Green has already secured sole claim to the title, as it enters this weekend with a perfect 6–0–0 record in the conference, and no other team can reach 18 league points this weekend. Yale kicks off in Princeton, New Jersey at 3 p.m. Saturday. Contact MADDIE WUELFING at madeleine.wuelfing@yale.edu .
ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Forward Keith Bond ’16 is one of six seniors set to play in his last career game as a Bulldog.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. West wind 9 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.
High of 48, low of 34.
A WITCH NAMED KOKO BY CHARLES BRUBAKER
ON CAMPUS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 12:00 PM Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. A puzzling turnaround in attention to national security among the conservative politicians governing Japan occurred in 1997, which preceded a dramatic transformation in Japanese security policy. Amy Catalinac, visiting assistant professor of politics at New York University, makes the case that electoral reform was a necessary condition for the recent transformation in Japanese security policy. Rosenkranz Hall (115 Prospect St.), Rm. 241. 7:30 PM Preparing for When Disaster Strikes. A public conversation with Rev. Nancy Taylor DIV ’81 will be held on Friday, Nov. 13. Taylor, pastor of Old South Church in Boston — located adjacent to the site of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 — will discuss “Preparing for When Disaster Strikes.” Sterling Divinity Quadrangle (409 Prospect St.), Common Room.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 10:00 AM Science Saturday Lecture & Science Demonstrations Series. Science Saturdays is a special lecture series designed for families that brings the excitement of research and the passion of scientists to school-age children. Each event involves a lecture by a Yale professor and engaging science demonstrations run by Yale College students. The lectures are free and open to the public and the topics explored are for kids in 7th grade and above. This Saturday’s lecture is by genetics professor Richard Lifton. Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (225 Prospect St.), Rm. 110.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15 12:00 PM Liffy: Latino & Iberian Film Festival at Yale. Screening Latin American, Latino and Iberian films at Yale and in the New Haven area for increased awareness of Spanish and Portuguese speaking cultures. All films have English subtitles. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse St.), Aud.
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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. (OppositeFOR JE) RELEASE NOVEMBER 13, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
CLASSIFIEDS
CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Set into motion 8 Golf alternative, briefly 15 Red bowlful 16 __ Itzá: Mayan ruins 17 Classic leading man who moonlighted at a pharmacy? 19 Second of 24 20 L.A. Kings’ org. 21 Management 22 Fiji’s region 25 Pulitzer-winning writer who moonlighted in a nightly news studio? 32 Saying that often goes without saying 33 Breaks down 34 One with a handbook 36 Tony winner Huffman 37 Bolshoi outfit 38 Kitchen bar 39 “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me” speaker 43 Folklore threats 44 Actor who moonlighted in a brass band? 47 Makes complementary (to) 48 “Here Come the __”: 1945 college comedy 52 Actor Stephen 53 18-Down competitor 57 English author who moonlighted at LensCrafters? 61 Enhances in the kitchen 62 “That’s my recommendation” 63 Reply to “That’s enough!” 64 Pool workers DOWN 1 Rhyme scheme in many sonnets 2 Bear up 3 Moderate pace 4 Open org. 5 “__ du lieber!”
11/13/15
By Jeffrey Wechsler
6 From that place 7 Rembrandt and Picasso, at times 8 Obsolescent family room fixture 9 Justification 10 Puzzle sometimes framed 11 Hose shade 12 Southeast Asian language 13 Garden party protection 14 Garden party intruders 18 53-Across competitor 22 Resistance unit 23 Collar 24 A-listers 25 City SSW of Dallas 26 Praise to the heavens 27 To help, to Henri 28 Piece of toast? 29 Expenditure 30 Activity of great interest? 31 __ One: vodka brand 35 Scam 39 Proper
Thursday’s Puzzle Solved
SUDOKU NECESSARY EVIL
1 7 9
3 5 7 4 3 5
9 7 6 8 5 3
8 ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
40 In a lather, with “up” 41 Words with take or lose 42 Fund-raiser 43 Like “fain”: Abbr. 45 Poe of the Baltimore Ravens, for one 46 Certain agent’s area 48 Mozart title starter 49 General Motors subsidiary
11/13/15
50 Substitute in a list 51 Ph.D. hurdle 53 Both, at the start 54 Contests 55 Smithsonian, e.g.: Abbr. 56 PD ranks 58 Italian diminutive suffix 59 Venom transmitter 60 Arguable ability
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SPORTS SOFIA GRIFF ’19 GRIFF GRABS ALL-IVY RECOGNITION The forward, who scored six goals for the Bulldogs in 2015, was one of just three freshmen to be named to the AllIvy second team for women’s soccer. Forward Michelle Alozie ’19, who also tallied six goals, and defender Hannah Coy ’18 were named to the Ivy Honor Roll.
YALE CROSS COUNTRY ELIS COMPETE AT NCAA REGIONALS Two weeks after one of the best combined results in the history of Yale cross country at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, the Bulldogs head to Boston this weekend for the NCAA Northeast Regional. The Eli women are ranked No. 29 nationally.
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“Standings and records do not matter when we play Harvard.” JESSE EBNER ’16 VOLLEYBALL
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
Yale faces test at Princeton FOOTBALL
Hockey skates to New York and Union (3–4–3, 1–3–0). “We’re not pleased with the way we’re starting games right now, but we’ll correct that here this week,” captain and defenseman Mitch Witek ’16 said. “Our mental toughness to handle adversity and comeback is a good sign and shows that we’re never out of games. But we need to consistently find a way to play a full 60 minutes.” On Friday night, Yale will take to the ice against the Engineers, who have not lost a game since their Oct. 24 defeat at the hands of then-No. 11 Michigan. RPI has one of the lowest-scoring offenses in the conference, having scored just 2.56 goals per contest, well behind the third-place Bulldogs’ 3.75 average. While the Engineers have not put up the most impressive offensive numbers, they have been productive on the penalty kill — RPI’s three shorthanded goals lead the conference, as only one other team has more than one. Forward Milos Bubela has two such goals on his own.
BY HOPE ALLCHIN STAFF REPORTER After a pair of back-to-back come-from-behind games in its three-point weekend, the No. 8/10 Yale men’s hockey team is preparing for another round of ECAC Hockey competition — and this time, the Bulldogs are looking to take control of the game from the opening faceoff.
MEN’S HOCKEY
DANIELA BRIGHENTI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
After two recent performances that stand in stark contrast with each other, Yale looks to prove itself against a team with the same record. BY MAYA SWEEDLER STAFF REPORTER In the span of two weeks, two completely different Yale football teams have taken the field at the Yale Bowl. On Halloween, a disjointed Bulldog squad turned in a listless performance in a 17–7 loss to Columbia, with just 120 yards and five first downs. The defeat, at the hands of a Lion squad that had not won an Ivy League contest since 2013, marked the Eli offense’s worst yard total in at least five years. A week later, Yale rebounded to dominate Brown, excelling on both sides of the ball and picking up a 41–14 win. All pieces of the team came together, including three interceptions by the defense and a standout rushing performance from cornerbackturned-running back Dale Harris ’17. The question ahead of Sat-
urday’s game against the Tigers (5–3, 2–3 Ivy) , is which of those two teams will show up when Yale plays at Princeton on Saturday. Though the Bulldogs (5–3, 2–3) were eliminated from Ivy title contention after Harvard’s 24–16 victory over Columbia last weekend, the two rivalry games remaining are critical for the program. “What’s really special about these two games [Harvard and Princeton] is just the amount of history and tradition,” defensive tackle Carl Kreitzberg ’16 said. “You just feel that these universities dive into these games, and sometimes in the Ivy League that’s not always the case … It’s a fun last two games to end my career on, so I’m excited about that.” The Tigers enter the penultimate game of the season following an overtime loss against Penn in which the Quakers blocked a game-winning field
goal during the final play of regulation. With one of its two quarterbacks — John Lovett — out with an injury, Princeton relied heavily on Chad Kanoff under center. Missing players is something the Elis can empathize with, as the team has struggled with a rash of injuries to key players on both sides of the ball. Against Brown, however, Yale added some creative personnel changes, enabling the team to score a season-high 41 points against the Bears. Perhaps the most surprising of those changes was Harris, who will play running back again this week, according to head coach Tony Reno. Harris and starting running back Deshawn Salter ’18 led a resurgent ground game that scored four touchdowns in the first three quarters. Though the offense remains crippled by a slew of injuries, Reno said that
Yale’s 443-yard effort, 71 of which came from Harris, was the unit’s best game in terms of moving the ball. Following a four-game stretch in which he threw eight interceptions and just one touchdown, quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 also looked more comfortable last week against a Bears secondary that allows 268.8 passing yards per game. Of Roberts’ 267 passing yards last week, 154 went to slot receiver Christopher WilliamsLopez ’18, who had a career day and will likely prove a major factor on Saturday if slot receiver Bo Hines ’18 does not return from injury for the game. Williams-Lopez returned to the field in early October after an injury of his own that he suffered in the preseason. “I think the hardest thing was getting back in shape, but Coach
Title hopes on the line BY JONATHAN MARX STAFF REPORTER Winning a championship has never been an easy task, let alone winning two back-to-back. But to win six titles in a row, even the best programs need some assistance — this weekend, the Yale volleyball team must sweep the two best teams in the Ivy League while receiving help from some unlikely sources.
VOLLEYBALL The Bulldogs (12–9, 7–5 Ivy) host first-place Harvard (13–9, 9–3) and second-place Dartmouth (11–10, 8–4) in a pair of must-win contests. Yale, two matches behind the Crimson, has to beat both teams to have a shot at a share of the Ancient Eight crown. In order for the five-time defending Ivy champions to move into a share of first place, Harvard must also lose its other match of the weekend against Brown, and Princeton must lose to either Columbia or Cornell in its pair of weekend games. Although such a slate of results would seem nearly impossible in most seasons, members of the Bulldogs believe that the increased
parity and skill level across the Ivy League makes every match less predictable and more exciting than ever before. “This season proved that the league is constantly getting better and everyone is adjusting to the new level of play,” captain and outside hitter Karlee Fuller ’16 said. “Everyone is good and poses a threat.” Fuller’s statement can be backed up as, looking back at the year thus far, a number of surprising results have already occurred. Harvard and Princeton have each dropped matches to teams in the bottom half of the Ivy League standings — the Crimson lost to Columbia in four sets while the Tigers fell 3–1 against fifth-place Penn. While the Elis’ destiny is no longer under their control, the Bulldogs claim their only concern this weekend is taking care of business in their own two games. “We need to perform our best each set and each point in order to get some wins this weekend,” middle blocker Jesse Ebner ’16 said. “It’s all about effort, grit and smart play.” In Yale’s favor is the fact that the team has played excellent volleyball at home so far this season. In the Elis’ road matches against
this weekend’s opponents, Yale lost in four sets at Dartmouth and was swept at Harvard. In each of the two matches, the Bulldogs dropped the first two frames in SEE VOLLEYBALL PAGE 8
SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 8
The Elis (3–0–1, 1–0–1 ECAC) returned from the second of three straight road campaigns without a loss on their record, tying with No. 6/7 Harvard last Friday night before besting Dartmouth on Saturday despite trailing for significant portions of each matchup. Although the games were characterized by top-notch goal-tending from two-time defending ECAC Goalie of the Week Alex Lyon ’17 and timely offensive fireworks, the slow starts of last weekend are a problem the team needs to address as it once again hits the road to face Rensselaer (4–4–1, 3–0–1)
SEE MEN’S HOCKEY PAGE 8
DANIELA BRIGHENTI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Forward Ryan Hitchcock ’18, who has two goals and two assists in four games, leads Yale with a plus-4 rating.
Yale seeks strong finish in NJ BY MADDIE WUELFING CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On the road for its final match of the season, the Yale men’s soccer team will take on Princeton this Saturday, hoping to turn the momentum from last week’s tie against Brown into the Bulldogs’ first Ivy win of the season.
MEN’S SOCCER
ERIN WANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Setter Kelly Johnson ’16 leads the Bulldogs with 227 kills.
STAT OF THE DAY 137
While Yale’s second tie of the 2015 Ivy League campaign has given the team confidence heading into the weekend, Princeton (9–5–2, 2–3–1 Ivy) has seen far more recent success and enters the contest riding a two-game winning streak. With every Ivy League team finishing its regular season Saturday, the Tigers and Elis (1–13–2, 0–4–2) will be fighting to finish on a strong note. “We are all looking to get this final win, and I believe we have worked hard enough this entire year to accomplish that,” forward Kyle Kenagy ’19 said. Yale was able to break a three-game losing streak last Saturday after a goal in the last 41 seconds equalized the
ROBBIE SHORT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Yale’s seniors will seek to end their collegiate careers with their first Ivy League win since 2013. score against Brown. Captain and defender Philip Piper ’16 headed in a ball to keep the Bulldogs alive for two overtime periods. However, neither team managed to successfully score again, ending the game with an even score. Piper and the rest of the class of 2016, in particular, will be seeking a strong send-off in the final game of their Yale careers. Although they were honored during last week’s Senior Day, the Saturday contest offers Yale one last chance to win its first
conference game since October 2013. “We want to get a win for our seniors,” midfield Josh Totte ’18 said. “They’ve done so much to move this program forward, and have contributed in so many ways, so we all are really exited to get out and battle one last time with them.” While Princeton ranks fifth in the Ivy League standings, its offense, in particular, is a threat. The Tiger offense SEE MEN’S SOCCER PAGE 8
THE NUMBER OF GAMES THAT THE YALE FOOTBALL TEAM HAS PLAYED AGAINST PRINCETON IN ITS HISTORY. The Elis enter their 138th meeting with the Tigers boasting a 75–52–10 record in the series, which dates back to 1873.
WEEKEND
// FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
MAKING THE EFFORT Is the student contribution portion of financial aid packages an unreasonable burden on low-income students? ROHAN NAIK investigates. //B3
//ASHLYN OAKES
DRUGS
B2
DECISIONS
B4
DIGS
B5
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET CAUGHT?
THE WAR OVER THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
TINY FURNITURE IN A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN
Clay Dupuy reflects on Yale policies’ effects on his life after a single offense.
Aparna Nathan explores the role New Haven plays in the abortion debate, from Griswold v. Connecticut to today’s Planned Parenthood.
Jillian Kravatz visits Artspace’s exhibit on the evolution of a single bedroom.
PAGE B2
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
It’s Aug. 28, 2014. I’m standing next to my attorney, holding my breath as the prosecutor attempts to argue against my entry into a diversionary program for nonviolent drug offenders. If he convinces the judge, I’ll be spending the next 22 years of my life in prison. He finishes, and the courtroom is silent. The judge pauses, draws a breath and looks at me. As a high-school salutatorian and driven Yale student, I never imagined my life course would bring me here. My path to the New Haven courthouse started eight months earlier, in January, when I was a 19-year-old sophomore. A friend, Casey*, and I took a few tabs of acid and Casey started having a bad trip. They became incoherent, ran downstairs and broke a vase in the fellow’s suite directly below mine. Within minutes, I heard four YPD officers struggling to restrain them. I panicked, and rushed to my college master and dean to explain what happened, thinking Casey was seriously injured. I hoped the information would help keep them safe. After being carted away in an ambulance, Casey was back to normal just 15 minutes later. Afterwards, I was told to hand over the rest of the drugs, which were then turned over to the YPD. A few days later, I was in an interrogation room with YPD detectives. A few weeks later, I was suspended and placed on probation until I graduate. Two months after that, I found myself sitting in a jail cell. I could have avoided all the trouble I am about to describe if I had never tried drugs. That’s the moral of almost all stories like this one. But these warnings have failed to reduce drug use for the last 40 years, so I don’t expect my story to make the key difference. According to a Yale Daily News survey from last spring, 44 percent of undergraduates will violate drug laws during their time at Yale. Only one case involving illicit drugs appeared before the Executive Committee last semester: a student was charged with using marijuana. But the current undergraduate regulations group all drugs together, and do not distinguish between offenses that involve selling for profit and sharing. Therefore, even students who use or share exclusively marijuana are potentially subject to the same sanctions as students who use or share LSD (or any other drug). So, while almost all students’ drug use will not interfere with their long-term plans, the handful of students who are caught violating Yale’s drug policies may face punishments ranging from probation to expulsion, which they will have to disclose on graduate school applications and to any potential employers who ask. THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING
// BY CLAY DUPUY
MY GAP YEAR AS AN UNCONVICTED DRUG FELON
DUPUY
WEEKEND VIEWS
FRIDAY NOVEMBER
13
After turning over the few paper squares of LSD we had left and the remaining leaves of marijuana in our grinder, I was surprised to hear that I’d likely be suspended. Running downstairs and breaking a vase is, after all, not that different from what a drunken person might do. Surely I wouldn’t be suspended if we had been drinking underage, so what does it matter if it was alcohol, marijuana or LSD that made Casey run downstairs? When I brought this question to an administrator at the time, they explained that Yale would respond so differently to my case “because the potential for harm for LSD is so much greater.” By now, most of us acknowledge that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, one would have to smoke 20,000–40,000 joints in one sitting to even be at risk of dying. While CNN reports that 9 percent of users will become dependent, marijuana withdrawal is relatively mild, unlike alcohol withdrawal, which can be fatal and last up to six months. A multicriteria analysis conducted by the British government’s chief drug adviser ranked the harms of drugs based on 26 factors, and found that LSD is even less harmful than marijuana. LSD overdose is unheard of, and no one has ever died from using LSD, according to a Harvard Medical School study. That study also found that “no physical damage” results from using LSD. LSD differs from marijuana, though, in that 0 percent of users become addicted to it, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. By contrast, one in six alcohol users will become dependent on alcohol. In four years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol caused 88,000 deaths, more than 8,000 of which were overdoses. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, alcohol is involved in 33 percent of violent crimes, whereas all drugs combined (including marijuana) account for 10 percent. Simply put, it is not at all clear that the “potential for harm” of marijuana or LSD is substantially greater than alco-
//ANNELISA LEINBACH
hol’s. Most of the 26 alcohol violations last semester involved “underage drinking or distributing alcohol to underage individuals at functions,” a felony in Connecticut. They were typically punished with “a reprimand and ongoing education and assessment,” according to an Executive Committee report. And I was facing suspension for a nonviolent drug offense. THE POISONED FRUIT Under the guidance of the administrator I had chosen as my advisor, I spoke to the police without an attorney present, having been led to believe that the YPD wasn’t interested in pressing charges. They supposedly wanted simply to document what happened. It turned out they were very interested in pressing criminal charges. They moved on an arrest warrant immediately after my interrogation, hitting me with a misdemeanor and two felonies: charges that carried 22 years in prison and $100,000 in fines. I formally surrendered to them on Mar. 3, 2014 (my 20th birthday), where I spent eight hours in a jail cell waiting to be processed. While there, I worried less about the prison time — which would be finite — and more about the permanent consequences of a felony record: ineligibility for welfare, food stamps and public housing, and discrimination in employment and licensing. I would be stripped of my right to vote and my financial aid eligibility, which meant that when I came out of prison as a 41 year old with more than $100,000 of debt, I wouldn’t be able to afford college, much less Yale. But my family suffered the most. My parents made $20,000 in net income in 2013. In 2014, Yale suspended and referred me for criminal prosecution. To keep me out of prison, my parents were forced to spend $32,685 — money they didn’t have — in legal fees, monthly travel to New Haven for court, the two classes Yale required me to take while I was away and school — and court-mandated drug therapy. Today, ages 60 and 68, my parents are still working to pay off those debts, unable to retire. Often, such stiff punishments on nonviolent offenses are justified by the need to deter other students from making similar mistakes. While this argument certainly makes intuitive sense, it lacks empirical support. Casey, for example, saw me suffer the consequences of my mistake firsthand. They watched me shove my belongings in a rental car and, in the middle of the night, say my last goodbyes to my closest friends, tears streaming down my face. Casey was expelled for a separate
YALE OUTDOORS SUNSET HIKE
East Rock (meet at Phelps Gate) // 3 p.m. If you want some more granola in your Friday.
offense a year later. A search of their room turned up a stash of marijuana. Already on probation and having seen firsthand what happens to nonviolent drug offenders at Yale, wouldn’t they be the last person to keep using drugs? Indeed, the roughly 300 students who report using LSD or cocaine and more than 300 who report using MDMA, according the spring 2014 survey, don’t seem to be deterred at all. I spoke with students who had acquired LSD from a member of the class of 2015 (who insisted I refer to him only as “Z”*). Z told me about the year he “made Spring Fling fun,” or when he supplied the MDMA that other students would distribute to 80–100 students. In all, he estimated that he sourced drugs for nearly 250 students over the course of his Yale career. Some of these transactions he conducted for profit. When I asked Z if he was deterred by the severe punishment he could face if caught, he explained that he varied his approach based on the drug: he knew he would receive a slap on the wrist for pot, but he took greater precaution for harder drugs. He did, however, realize that he could spend more than 20 years in prison for selling drugs other than marijuana. When I asked why these penalties didn’t deter him, he responded: “there were too many degrees of separation between me and the user.” The only user who Z directly interfaced with was the courier who delivered these drugs, a middleman who often used them himself. When I asked Z if he considered the risks of what might happen to him if this friend were caught (and facing between 20 years and a life sentence in prison), he was again confident that he wouldn’t be caught. “He wouldn’t have rolled over on me,” Z said. “DRUG PROSECUTIONS CAN RUIN LIVES” A year ago, the judge who considered the prosecutor’s objections ended up accepting my petition for the diversionary program. Nine weeks ago, after a year of therapy, drug tests and monthly travel to New Haven, all charges against me were dropped. And while my criminal history is clean, I’ll never forget the year I spent contemplating the possibility that I would be in prison until my 40s. I asked Steven Duke LLM ’61, a professor at the Law School, about the University’s handling of cases like mine. While he admitted that he hadn’t deeply considered drug policy at the university level, he felt that police should rarely be involved in campus drug offenses and that the University should almost always handle cases internally.
“Drug prosecutions can ruin lives,” he added. I returned to Yale at the beginning of this term. I completed interviews with my residential college Dean April Ruiz, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Pamela George and Chief of Mental Health & Counseling Lorraine Siggins. All three were nothing but kind, warm and gracious to me. And after an appeal, the Executive Committee eliminated the probation requirement of my punishment. Still, because my suspension remained in place and Yale offers no path toward expunging a disciplinary record, I must disclose it on all law school applications and to future employers who ask about it for the rest of my life. I now agree with the advice that I heard from my attorney, Mark Sherman, after I came forward: exercise your right to remain silent at all times, because an honest confession can do serious damage. During my suspension, 1,000 miles away from my closest friends and the place that gave my life meaning, I wished that I had heard Sherman’s advice before I confessed. “Students should know that they always have the right to an attorney even at a private university,” he said. “[They] should always contact a lawyer prior to making any statements to a police officer.” Sometimes I fantasized about going back in time and flushing the drugs down the toilet to avoid the ensuing consequences. Another student, Taylor*, who was put on probation for a nonviolent LSD offense, reported feeling similarly. “The morning after I woke up I was fine. It wasn’t like there was this lasting impression on me,” he said. “It wasn’t the trauma of dealing with the incident itself; it was definitely the punishment and the mental guilt.” We often hear the word “family” invoked in discussions about the residential college communities. We come to Yale expecting to enter an institution that will accept us as we are. Cody,* whose close friend was expelled for sharing LSD with a suitemate, reflected on how the tradition of “family” at Yale ought to extend to people who make mistakes like the one I did. “Yale says itself that we’re ‘a tradition, a company of scholars, a society of friends’ and I think that’s absolutely true. But I think when Yale jumps the gun like that and expels a person who has no prior record … don’t just kick him onto the street. We should work to get help for these individuals, not cast them out.” *Identity has been changed to preserve anonymity. Contact CLAY DUPUY at clement.dupuy@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Men watching football.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE B3
WEEKEND PAYS
SCHOOL DUES // BY ROHAN NAIK
DEFINITIONS YALE FINANCIAL AID student effort (n.) A term that describes both
Student Self-Help and the Student Income Contribution. Together, this represents what a student should expect to pay towards their Yale education. It amounts to $4,475 for freshmen and $6,400 for other class years.
student self-help (n.)
An amount that is intended to come from term-time job, It can also come from outside scholarship, other family resources, or loan. It amounts to $2,850 for freshmen and $3,350 for other class years.
student income contribution (n.)
An amount that is intended to come from a summer job. It too can be met from an outside scholarship, other family resources, or loan. It amounts to $1,625 for freshmen and $3,050 for other class years.
parental contribution (n.)
The amount a student’s parent(s) or guardian(s) are expected to contribute toward the entire cost of attendance. The amount is dependent on a family’s income and assets. Many lower-income families will have a Parental Contribution of $0. //AMANDA MEI
n September of her sophomore year, Yamile Lozano ’17 received a letter threatening her with forced withdrawal from Yale College. After some initial panic, Lozano figured out what the problem was: She owed Yale $2,000. The daughter of formerly undocumented immigrants, Lozano came to Yale under the impression she would receive a completely free education. What she found was a situation far more complex. The total cost of attendance at Yale for the 2015–16 school year is $65,725. Lozano is one of roughly 2,800 Yale students — or 52 percent of the undergraduate population — receiving need-based financial aid from the university. Families earning between $65,000 and $200,000 are responsible for what is known as the parental contribution: a percentage of their yearly income toward their child’s Yale education. This percentage, determined by Student Financial Services, works on a sliding scale as income increases. Families with usual assets whose total gross income is less than $65,000 are not expected to make any financial contribution towards tuition. For these families, Yale declares unequivocally that 100 percent of the total cost of attendance will be financed with a Yale Financial Aid Award. However, students must still pay the “student effort” portion of the cost. This is comprised of “student self-help,” an amount intended to come from term-time work and used for books, laundry and other miscellaneous costs, and a “student income contribution” that is intended to derive from summer work and is paid to the University. The total student effort represents what a student should expect to pay toward her or his Yale education, and amounts to $4,475 for freshmen and $6,400 for all other class years. Because Lozano was notified before arriving at Yale that her expected family contribution was zero, she inferred that she too would not have to pay anything, and was unaware of the student effort payment. Outside scholarships covered her needs during her freshman year, and in the following summer she participated in the Science, Technology and Research Scholars Program, administered by the Yale College Dean’s Office. The program provides a total stipend of $2,500 and also covers participants’ SIC. Unbeknownst to Lozano, her student effort portion had been covered the entirety of her freshman year. Shortly after receiving the letter demanding payment during her sophomore year, Lozano was finally forced to confront the student effort payment. If she couldn’t meet it, she would have to withdraw from Yale.
I
UPS AND DOWNS
//ASHLYN OAKES
On Feb. 24, 2005, 15 Yale students staged a sit-in at the Admissions Office to demand reforms in the college’s financial aid policies. The students, bolstered by around 150 protesters outside, occupied the building for over eight hours until New Haven police officers and university officials shut it down. The episode, which garnered attention from national media outlets including The New York Times,
prompted then-President Rick Levin to acknowledge that tuition costs were too high for low-income students. The parental contribution was then eliminated for families making less than $45,000. A few years later, in 2008, as a result of continued student activism and protest, Yale announced it would reduce the tuition cost for families making less than $200,000. Perhaps most notably, it eradicated the parental contribution for families earning less than $60,000 annually. In that year, the student effort portion of financial aid dropped abruptly from $6,800 to $4,950, a 27 percent decrease. The 2008–09 school year was arguably the single most affordable year in history to be a low-income student at Yale. This progressive spirit quickly disintegrated, however, and the student effort saw incremental surges each year. In 2009, student effort increased from $4,950 to $5,050. By 2010, it surged to $5,750. In 2012, costs rose to $6,100. The next year it was at $6,300. By 2014, it grew to $6,400. Tyler Blackmon ‘16, a student on financial aid, former YCC member and staff columnist for the News, said the administration has been able to increase cost without significant backlash through yearly increments, rather than a large spike. He added that because undergraduates are transient students, they have little memory of what occurred in 2005 or 2008. “That’s what Yale relies on,” he said. “It knows it’ll outlast students.” Back in 2008, Levin stated that all students should be able to experience Yale without anxiety over jobs or debt. “Our new financial aid package makes this aspiration a reality,” he said. But since 2008, the total student effort has increased by over 37 percent — is this aspiration still a reality? WORKING TO LIVE “It’s impossible to pay,” Jackson Stallings ‘17 said. Stallings, a tight end on the football team, referred to the difficulty of paying the student effort while playing on a varsity athletics team. He noted that while the NCAA mandates athletes play no more than 20 hours a week, with travel time, meetings without coaches, health treatment and independent exercise, football players spend closer to 40 hours a week on the sport. As a result, Stallings doesn’t have enough time for a student job during the football season. He picks one up during the offseason, working four to six hours a week, and his mother works an extra day as a hygienist in Oklahoma City to help pay his student income contribution. He noted that some of his teammates are in worse situations; the amount they have to work in the offseason restricts their Yale experience. Nadya Stryuk ’17, an international student from Russia, said that since she has been working since she was 14, the necessity of working seems reasonable to her and that she does not feel so passionately about student effort. “When you’re in a poor country and you have an opportunity to go to a college, you’re ready to work and do anything to get here, so it’s not such a [problem],” she said. But all students on financial aid interviewed pointed to two distinct Yales. In the first, students who don’t face financial pressures are free to pursue extracurriculars at will, and can spend significant
amounts of time writing for a publication or singing in an a cappella group. On the other hand, students who need to complete the student effort face a far more limited Yale in which they must judge extracurriculars based on the time commitments and often forsake them altogether for student jobs. Frances Schmiede ’17, a member of the cross country and track and field teams, echoed this sentiment. In addition to training for 12–15 hours a week, she works eight hours a week at the Yale Center for British Art’s institutional archives. She has had time to attend only one master’s tea at Yale. She noted that the obligation to work so many hours had significantly impacted her athletics; and it took her a year and a half to adjust to the routine of work, school and training. “It’s just so strictly regimented and there’s no time for spontaneity, which is a huge part of the undergraduate experience,” she said. Leo Espinoza ’17, another student on financial aid, said that college is often viewed as a triangle. Out of good grades, a robust social life or enough sleep, a typical college student must choose two. According to Espinoza, this process of selection is compounded for those who need to work student jobs as they are constantly faced with opportunity costs. While Yale limits a student to working at the most 19 hours a week, some students seek loopholes. Aryssa Damron ’18 admitted that while the work limit is likely for the better, she often wished she could work more because she needed more money. “I work around 19 hours a week, and sometimes I go over,” she said. “As long as you don’t do that every week, they don’t yell at you. That’s what I’ve found out.” THE LOAN ROAD In the fall of 2014, when Lozano realized she owed the university $2,000, she immediately investigated possible ways to pay. Despite quickly obtaining two student jobs, she still didn’t have enough money to cover her expenses. Lozano’s father, who works in construction, and her mother, a housekeeper by day and a nursing assistant at night, were unable to provide any money for her student effort. After they lost their house, Lozano noted, $2,000 was more than her family had in its savings account. Yale’s admissions website claims the university “meets 100 percent of demonstrated need for all students” and that “no loans are ever required.” But students tell a different story. Sixteen percent of the Yale College class of 2014 — including many students not receiving financial aid — chose to take out a loan, with an average cumulative indebtedness of $14,853, according to a News op-ed written by Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan and Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi. Storlazzi told the News that “students can avoid borrowing because Yale does not include loans in financial aid packages.” But Blackmon said that in his opinion, taking out a loan is not a question of “choice,” but rather a decision based on exigent financial circumstances. He argued that Yale’s promises of freedom from loans, a robust extracurricular life and great summer experiences can exist in isolation but not together. In the 2015 op-ed, Quinlan and Storlazzi wrote that although some students may use loans to finance their Yale education, loans are never the only choice. But Blackmon said this is a “warped way of thinking” and that “no one SEE PAYS PAGE B8
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ROSHNI
Woolsey Hall // 7 p.m. Get your week’s fix of Bollywood and South Asian culture.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Tasteful fall foliage leaves.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND PREGNANCIES
THE ROAD FROM GRISWOLD // BY APARNA NATHAN
//SARA SEYMOUR
On one Thursday night last month, the Long Wharf Theatre was packed. The occasion: to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, a landmark Supreme Court case that declared Connecticut’s antiabortion law illegal and sparked similar change nationwide. On stage, Judy Tabar, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, addressed the packed room. “Estelle Griswold fought hard for women’s access and rights, and we are proud to carry on her legacy,” Tabar said. “Just as those involved in the Griswold case knew they could make a difference, I know that together we have, and will continue to build a future where all women can fully pursue their dreams, wherever they may lead.” Right outside the venue, the atmosphere was quite different. Over 50 pro-life activists lined up on the curb holdings signs that read, “Stop abortion now” and “Save all the lives.” In New Haven, home to the headquarters of PPSNE, you can find organizations that span the spectrum of the abortion debate, ranging from a Planned Parenthood health center to multiple crisis pregnancy centers. Even Yale contributes to the dialogue in subtle ways through the Yale Medical Group, which offers abortion services and a residency program for OB-GYNs to train in abortions through the School of Medicine’s family-planning department. Although 50 years have passed since the Supreme Court ruling on Griswold, the ideologies and practices of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates continue to clash in New Haven, the city that served as an early battleground for the debate. *** New Haven’s Planned Parenthood clinic is located at the far corner of Science Hill, further than most undergraduates would venture. The day that I make the trek up there, the sky is a melancholy gray, and I huddle under my umbrella to avoid the frigid rain. In spite of the weather, two lone individuals stand at the corner. One holds a sign with the image of what I take to be a fetus, while the other holds a stack of pamphlets. By the clinic entrance on Edwards Street, I encounter three more women with signs. One walks up to me, reminding me in a hushed tone: “They kill babies in there, you know.” I politely apologize as I step around her. “Well, are you sorry enough to do something about it?” she
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shouts down the street behind me. Protestors are a common fixture at the corner, where they seek to dissuade potential patients from getting abortions or even receiving any medical services from Planned Parenthood. Every third Saturday of the month, a group conducts prayer outside of the center, said Roland McNary, chairman of the board of Saint Gianna Center, a prolife pregnancy resource center in New Haven. The protesters’ presence increased this fall in response to the video footage of Planned Parenthood staff that was released throughout the summer, according to Sarah Grossman-Kahn ’17, director of New Haven outreach for the Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale. Grossman-Kahn volunteers as a clinic escort at Planned Parenthood’s New Haven health center, where she helps guide patients into the building through the throngs of protesters. In the wake of the videos’ release, the protest crowds grew and began appearing on Wednesdays and Fridays, in addition to their routine presence on Saturdays. “We’re there to provide a positive presence as the patients are going in,” Grossman-Kahn said of her role. “If the women are going into the clinic, it’s a scary situation no matter what.” Inside its brick, house-like exterior, PPSNE’s waiting room looks no different from any doctor’s office. After all, Planned Parenthood is primarily a medical facility, said Kafi Rouse, director of public relations and marketing for PPSNE. The New Haven health center, along with the 16 other centers in Connecticut, offers gynecological exams, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and diseases, contraception, abortions and pregnancy tests. In Connecticut, Planned Parenthood serves around 64,000 patients a year, Rouse said. It receives the most attention for its abortion services, but according to the 2014–15 Annual Report, abortions comprised only around 6 percent of the services provided in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The majority of patients came for contraceptive services or STI/ STD screening. On Planned Parenthood’s sliding-fee scale, the cost for a patient’s visit depends on her income, family size and the services she requires. As a result, the model appeals to many patients who are uninsured or underinsured, Rouse said. They also often hail from minority communities that traditionally face obstacles in accessing reproductive services, she added.
“What we take a look at is disparities [among] racial and ethnic backgrounds,” Rouse said. “We hope those disparities that currently exist for low-income women and women of color will soon be erased.” These discrepancies are certainly pertinent in Connecticut, where, according to a 2013 report by the Guttmacher Institute, nearly 40 percent of women who are in need of family-planning services are below the federal poverty line. The same report stated that Planned Parenthood clinics served 65 percent of these clients in 2010. In New Haven in particular, over 60 percent of births between 2007 and 2009 were to mothers reliant on Medicaid or HUSKY Health, which provides statesubsidized insurance for children, the disabled and pregnant women. Maria Damiani, director of maternal and child health at the New Haven Health Department, said that because of the state’s relatively flexible guidelines for qualifying for subsidized health care, pregnant women are often able to find coverage under one of those programs. She has found that the uninsured or underinsured women that she works with often feel comfortable going to Planned Parenthood. “People hear a lot of press about abortions, but the only role I see [Planned Parenthood] play is as a health care provider,” Damiani said. “I think they provide an incredible amount of health education … they’re incredible caregivers.” *** From Planned Parenthood, I turned left and walked down Whitney Avenue. When I arrived at Saint Gianna Center, I realized that I’d actually passed it many times. The building is located just at the periphery of campus — at the corner of Trumbull and Temple streets, it’s only a block from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and almost within sight of Timothy Dwight College. I entered down a flight of stairs into the building’s basement; the furnishings were reminiscent of a nursery. The room had a surprising amount of natural light, despite being underground. This is where clients come for their consultations, said Carolyn Falcigno, secretary of the Saint Gianna Center board who has volunteered there since the center’s inception. “This is where we bring the mothers when they first come in,” Falcigno said. She pointed to a plush brown rocking chair. “They love sitting in that and just rocking back and forth.” Saint Gianna Center is a rel-
PITCHES & TONES
Sudler Recital Hall // 7:30 p.m. Pitch me a tone, you’re the piano man!
atively new addition to New Haven; it was founded just under three years ago on Dec. 12, 2012. The date is particularly important, McNary said, because it is the feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the protector of unborn babies — her image hangs on the wall by the front door. The center’s mission is true to its Catholic namesake: St. Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian doctor who died in 1962 of uterine cancer. When a doctor recommended that she get a life-saving hysterectomy that would result in the abortion of her pregnancy, she refused. The founders of Saint Gianna Center were originally brought together by their priest. McNary had already been a pro-life minister in his church, and he and his wife often took pregnant women into their home. Now, the center is run by a part-time staff of eight board members and seven additional volunteers. Choose Life at Yale President Elizabeth Tokarz ’17 has volunteered at Saint Gianna, and, given the center’s proximity to Yale’s campus, hopes that more members of CLAY can get involved. During my visit, Falcigno and McNary were quick to identify as pro-life. Falcigno pointed to a small pin with an image of baby footprints that she wears on her collar. “That’s the size of a 10-weekold baby [embryo],” she said. Mothers who come to the Saint Gianna Center are counseled on how to proceed with their pregnancy. Falcigno often connects them with other facilities where they can get an ultrasound, and Saint Gianna hosts classes taught by nurses on topics from childbirth to breastfeeding. Saint Gianna Center also receives referrals from local community organizations whose clients need help obtaining baby supplies. Alexine Casanova Gaye, director of case management at Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, a refugee resettlement program run by the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, said she refers people to Saint Gianna Center for supplies like baby formula and car seats. Damiani also refers women to the center for services that her department does not offer, adding that it is not a health care organization — rather, it is a social-service organization that is able to help women obtain items they cannot otherwise afford. Many, but not all patients stay in touch with Saint Gianna Center throughout their pregnancy. Falcigno remembers one woman whom they “lost” when she ultimately decided to have an abortion. The center’s mission comes from a personal place for Fal-
cigno. She recounted that at 16 — soon after abortion had been legalized — she herself had an abortion. “I felt lied to,” she said. “It left a hole in my heart.” Thirty-seven years later, she works with clients going through a situation that she identifies with, she said. Most are referred to the center by churches or agencies; some hear about it through word-of-mouth or see the sign from the public bus that passes by regularly. The center serves five to six patients a week, with an estimate of around 100 a year, Falcigno said. A report released this summer by the NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut Foundation indicted crisis pregnancy centers for misinforming patients by exaggerating the risks of abortion, often under the masquerade of being a medical authority. However, Falcigno insisted that Saint Gianna is not a medical institution, and, when asked about the NARAL report and other negative media coverage, she initially expressed her frustration at being grouped with other centers, noting that there is a wide spectrum. She quickly added, though, that pregnancy centers have a shared basic mission. “We want to show love and care to all moms,” she said. “We can do it in a spiritual way; a medical center would do it differently. At the core, it’s the same.” *** Falcigno and McNary chose Saint Gianna Center’s basement location after months of searching for a viable — and, more importantly, affordable — property. In fact, the building they chose has played an important role since the earliest days of the prochoice movement — when New Haven and Yale were at the center of the debate. In the mid-1930s, the Connecticut Birth Control League, led by Yale obstetrics and gynecology instructor Nowell Creadick, was headquartered at the 79 Trumbull St. property. Three decades later, Griswold, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut at the time, would unknowingly choose the same site to open the clinic that would become the basis of Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold and Yale professor of obstetrics and gynecology C. Lee Buxton rented rooms on the second floor of 79 Trumbull St. to move the PPLC offices and establish the clinic, where they would provide contraception to local married women. At the time, this was illegal by the 1873 Comstock Law.
The clinic opened on Nov. 1, 1961. It was open for only nine days, and during that time, its patients included a Yale graduate student and a graduate of the Yale Divinity School, who would later be called as witnesses in the trial. After the clinic was shut down and Griswold and Buxton were arrested as accessories to the crime of using contraception, the case proceeded to court. Four years later, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in their favor, establishing the right to “marital privacy.” *** Fifty years after Griswold opened (and closed) her clinic in 1961, Saint Gianna Center now operates in the basement of the same building. Falcigno and McNary said they had no idea their building had such a history, although they knew PPLC had a presence on Trumbull Street. John Zmirak ’86 remembers staging a protest on Trumbull Street nearly 30 years ago. A supporter of pro-life movements since the age of eight, Zmirak had been involved with the Yale Student Pro-Life Coalition, the small pro-life group that existed during his time on campus. On Jan. 22, 1986 — the 13th anniversary of Roe v. Wade — he marched outside Planned Parenthood’s Griswold-Buxton Clinic with a homemade sign. The protest grew to approximately 50 people, encompassing both protesters and counter-protesters. Now, almost three decades into his post-Yale life, Zmirak is still involved with pro-life activism and remembers that day vividly. Although pro-choice counter-protesters outnumbered the pro-life protesters, he still thinks of it as a “standout day” for the pro-life cause, which he said has always been at the margins in New Haven and at Yale. There were no pro-life crisis pregnancy centers at the time, and Planned Parenthood had always had a dominant presence in the area. It is just this historical legacy in which PPSNE takes pride. Planned Parenthood has been in Connecticut for over 90 years. Community members trust Planned Parenthood and know people in the health centers that have been there for as long as they can remember, Rouse said, making them a staple in the community. “I don’t think women’s needs have changed much [over the past 50 years],” Damiani said. “We’re just looking at it more holistically, and there are a lot of great resources in New Haven.” Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Gourds.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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WEEKEND ARTS
THE SPACES // BY JILLIAN KRAVATZ
I stepped through two black curtains into local artist Cayla Lockwood’s “Bedroom,” currently on display in ArtSpace’s project room. I was expecting a bed, a few pillows, maybe a nightstand. Instead, I stepped into a strange, almost dream-like space: white walls, a stained-glass window, floating tea lights, five black conical shapes (Oversized traffic cones? Ant hills? Stalagmites?) arranged in an imperfect semicircle on the floor. Jazzy elevator music played from somewhere in the room. From somewhere else, echoing streams of a distant voice sang, “Oh, where can I go to and what can I do?” (Ozzy Ozbourne in Black Sabbath’s “Solitude,” according to a not-so-stealthy Google search). How is this a bedroom? I thought, feeling a little betrayed or just naïve. Shuffling around the room a few times, still confused, I stepped closer to the centermost stalagmite. “The world is a lonely place,” Ozzy crooned. I
craned my neck to the top of the cone and peered down. There, at the bottom, was a miniature bedroom about the size of one cubic foot.
WITH SO MANY THINGS, YOU’RE NEVER REALLY ALONE (AND YET, YOU ALWAYS ARE). “I am interested in small moments with large feelings,” Lockwood wrote in her description of “Bedroom.” At the bottom of each cone-like structure, Lockwood set up a different diorama of the same bedroom, each showing the room in a varying state of array. She aimed to explore space, loneliness and longing. As a poet and graphic designer, much of Lockwood’s past work has explored loneliness and melancholy through
desk, ready to open the boxes. It’s a hopeful room, a beginning. Another version of the room is in perfect order. The light is orange and warm; the paintings hang straight on the wall; the bed is made; a laptop sits open on the desk. Life is good. Then the room is dim and messy, and its details are hard to make out. Blankets heaped on the bed, bookshelf empty, floor covered in little scraps of trash — the room is tired and lived-in. Some winters are harder than others. In another miniature, blue light completely inundates the room. There’s been a fight, or a betrayal. The bed is torn apart, and two dirty bowls fester next to it. The floor is covered in trash and the dresser is askew. Someone has left. Lockwood aims to convey a space of loneliness and melancholy, and in many ways, she does — the distressed melodies, the blue and the disheveled sheets, for instance. More poignantly, however, the exhibit
reveals the way our lives are ever-surrounded and defined by our things. Maybe I’m too materialistic, but life often feels like a drawn-out accumulation of stuff. We find, we ruin, we display, we toss, we drop, we lose, we find, we keep. The moon poster we hang stays on the wall for years. The same plant goes with us from our sophomore-year dorm to our junior-year dorm. We get new socks, and they still end up on the floor. In “Bedroom,” it’s a comfort to recognize the same blanket on the bed from miniature to miniature. It’s a relief to see the same scissors, the same guitar case, the same desk chair. However clean and bright or dreary and dirty the room becomes, the stuff of Lockwood’s “Bedroom” tells its own story. With so many things, you’re never really alone (and yet, you always are). I think of my own bedroom back home, a place I leave abandoned for most of the year. It’s packed with my junk — old
books with plots that I’ve forgotten, movie tickets, halfempty lip gloss tubes. My bedroom tells a haphazard story of places I’ve been, things I’ve picked up, and people I’ve met. Each time I go home, it is in these tangible objects that I see who I am, or at least who I was. Sometimes, my mom told me, she goes into my bedroom and lies down on the bed. She flips through my books and opens the desk drawers. Surrounded by my junk, she feels less lonely. I think this is the loneliest part of Lockwood’s “Bedroom” — not being able to open the drawers, lie on the bed or rummage through the trash. Looming above the rooms, peering down, we are but distanced viewers. Leaving the exhibit, I catch a few more strains of Ozzy’s “Solitude.” “Everything I possessed, now they are gone.” Contact JILLIAN KRAVATZ at jillian.kravatz@yale.edu .
WE FILL
text-based installations, often short poetry appearing in unlikely places. But “Bedroom,” part of a citywide open studio project called “Dwelling,” is almost entirely devoid of text. Its effects are predominantly visual, forcing us to think about the tangible things that make up our personal space (the pillows, the pizza boxes, the posters) and the ways those things remain over time. It’s an almost voyeuristic thrill, peering down into the rooms. Though the exhibit gives no explicit order in which to view the miniatures, it’s hard not to construct a narrative between them. In one miniature, someone is just moving in. It is bright with Christmas lights; unopened boxes are stacked against one wall; a guitar case sits by the bed. Framed paintings and a few other miscellaneous objects are stacked by the wall, and a Pizza Hut box lays slightly opened on the floor. A hammer, screwdriver and scissors sit on the
//ROBBIE SHORT
SMASHING THE GENDER BINARY // BY YVONNE YE “Ladies and gentlemen and persons of all gender,” began emcee Fara Day, a dramatic black silhouette on the stage. “You’ve seen it last year, you’ve seen it the year before and you’ve seen it the year it snowed in fucking October … the New Haven Striptease!” Day’s “striptease” was slow and methodical. She removed layer after layer of heavy winter coats, pulled off leather gloves with her teeth and wrestled with yet more sweaters, all building to the big reveal: full-length pants and a tank top. GenderSMASH, the first show of the season for Yale’s only drag, burlesque and cabaret group, took Sudler Hall by storm on Sunday night with performances that included lip-syncing, dancing, spontaneous musical numbers and even a queer retelling of Rumpelstiltskin that had the audience gasping, laughing and cheering. Witty, satirical and irreverent, GenderSMASH trampled traditional gender delineations and embraced the messiness of negotiating gender pronouns. The audience hooted and hollered in full support of the hip-hop dancers “Just Bros Being Dudes,” snapped
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for the Queer Fairy Tale characters, who all lived “fabulously ever after,” and could hardly stop laughing during Charley Whip, Fara Day and Jack Daniels’ rendition of “Lesbian or Hipster?” This number, a musical parody of “Gay or European,” merrily poked fun at stereotypes, fashion sense and the unfathomable distance between Pierson and TD (Day: “I can’t set up my Pierson suitemate in a longdistance relationship!”). I found it spectacularly well written, with rhymes as surprising and welldone as those in any Broadway hit. And, needless to say, it was impossible to forget Whip’s rainbow feather boa, which they pulled out from the crotch of their pants while lip-syncing to “I’m Sexy and I Know It.” But GenderSMASH wasn’t just fun and games. Drag queen Lizzie “the Beast” Bennett performed a poignant routine to “Why Bother,” portraying a trans woman facing rejection and isolation because of her identity. Bennett leaped off the stage and into the “Splash Zone,” or the first several rows in the auditorium. She got into audience members’ faces, asking “Why bother? It’s gonna hurt me
THIS LAND WAS MADE Iseman Theater // 8 p.m.
“Liberation. Peace. Protests. Sedition. Love. Self-Defense. Revolution.”
— It’s gonna kill when you desert me,” and, with the lipstick she had begun the choreography with, slashed a vivid line of red down her arm. Next, Lady Deathstryke’s rendition of Marilyn Manson’s “Rock is Dead” opened by posing a powerful thought experiment: “You are a trans woman getting ready to go out on the town. You know you will be read as trans, so do you dress demure or sexy? Would you rather be fearful or be feared?” Lady Deathstryke, dressed in a floor-length leather coat, answered through her performance: Be fearsome. Be sexy. Be really fucking magnetic. Because at its heart, GenderSMASH is more than just an hour of risqué acts and cross-dressing. Part of Trans/gender Awareness Weeks at Yale, the Bad Romantics’ first performance of the season is very much a commemoration of trans people who face abuse, harassment and murder around the world. “We are up here performing because we are powerful, we are fierce and we love ourselves,” said Whip. Frank acknowledgment and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people
and themes in its performances sets GenderSMASH apart from (or above) other shows. Where Rumpelstiltskin was once a fairy tale about defeating the mysterious Other against all odds, Frank Taylor flipped it on its head and turned the name-guessing game into a candid discussion of gender pronouns and how to be a basic human being. Unlike two other shows I watched this weekend, GenderSMASH had hardly a straight romance in sight, and it took this fact, strutted it and sold it. The fact that the performers were drag queens and kings and trans people of Yale made no difference to the audience, who called out compliments and encouragement to the stage all the same. And, if I may be a little romantic, GenderSMASH’s atmosphere of complete and utter acceptance of anyone within, across or beyond the gender binary system inspired hope that one day the entire world can be like this: supportive, accepting and — if we’re lucky — just as sexy and self-confident. Contact YVONNE YE at yvonne.ye@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: Tofu turkey.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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WEEKEND TRUTHS
KEEPING IT FAKE OVER THANSKGIVING BREAK // BY WEEKEND
WHAT THEY SAY/THEY MEAN “You must be so smart!” “You must think you’re really goddamn brilliant.” “Do you get out much?” “Do you get out much, NERD?” “Are you seeing someone right now?” “I hope you find someone to love before you’re ugly and graying and working as a freelancer.” “Are you still straight?” “Are the other kids nice?” “Is everything we’re reading true?” “I bet you’re doing really well in school.” “I could care less how well you’re doing in school.”
D AY FRIDAY MNOVEMBER ONTH ##
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PAINT ME BY A DIFFERENT DRUM
Morse/Stiles Crescent Theater // 8 p.m. Color us blue, yellow, red, pink, etc.
WKND RECOMMENDS:
As we return for Thanksgiving Break to our native hamlets, lairs, bunk-beds and mega-mansions, we will fend off from every side loaded questions about the Yale experience. From your grandmother who wants to make sure you still adhere to family values, whatever those are, to your other grandmother, who wants to know why she saw a picture of you on Facebook with a ham sandwich (meat is murder), to
WHAT YOU SAY/YOU MEAN *shrug* “I’m not that smart. I do OK.” “2390 on my SATs, baby. You better fucking believe I’m a leader of tomorrow.” “I usually just hang out with friends on the weekend.” “When I’m not up all night writing papers about the significance of dead white men in every Shakespeare play ever, my friends and I address our ambivalence about the meaning of higher education and life by talking about mindfulness while pounding down frozen margaritas.” “You know, I got on a date here or there.” “We ate GHeav sandwiches while they told me they wanted to keep it casual. Then they screwed their high school best friend over Fall Break. Does that count?” “The closest I’ve come to sexual interaction this semester has been reading about radical lesbianism for my WGSS class.” “I love talking to other people at Yale. Everyone is super passionate.” “My interaction with other students consists of passing them in the streets, waving a frantic hand, and shouting, ‘Let’s get a meal!’” “I try my best in all my classes.” “My professors have nothing to praise in my papers but my innovative use of the semicolon.”
SATURDAY NOVEMBER
Real turkey.
your mom’s work friend who once told you helpfully that all that baby fat would come off sooner or later, you’ll be confronted by a maze of small talk so intricate, it’s best to start working through it now. For anyone who’s new to campus, or those of us who still haven’t figured it out, here’s a guide to what they’re asking, what you can respond, and what everyone means — we all know it’s not what we’re saying!
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LATINO AND IBERIAN FILM FESTIVAL Luce Hall Auditorium // 12 p.m.
Lose yourself in Luce.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Turducken.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND PAYS
THE COST OF LEARNING // BY ROHAN NAIK
PAYS FROM PAGE B3 chooses to take out loans.” Lozano said she sees Yale’s portrayal of its financial aid policies to prospective students to be “so dishonest.” “Yale, you [promised] to give loan-free need-based financial aid, and that’s just not what happened,” she said. Eight of 10 students interviewed echoed the sentiment that Yale’s financial aid policy is misleading. Specifically, they mentioned that in the profusion of information about various kinds of financial aid, they did not understand the scope of student effort until arriving at Yale. One student even mistook it for a onetime entrance fee. The few that were aware of it before receiving their first bill noted that they envisioned it to be more feasible. Julia Hamer-Light ’18 said that while she knew about the student effort, she assumed it was easily achievable before coming to campus. “When I came to Yale, I thought Yale would have a system or structure in place that would allow students to [pay it] in a way that makes sense. I have not encountered any of that” she said. Students also noted that high school counselors and admissions brochures depicted a Yale education as 100 percent free for low-income individuals. Some scholarship programs pledge full financial aid for four years, but they do not always cover the student effort. The Questbridge Scholarship, for example, functions the same as a Yale financial aid award and does not cover the student effort portion. All students emphasized that they always planned to work while at Yale to earn money for miscellaneous expenses and in some cases to be financially independent from their families. However, they did not envision needing to use money from work to pay for the student effort. The desire for financial independence is especially poignant for students whose families cannot provide money for the incidental expenses of life at college. Espinoza, whose mother works at a food processing plant
and whose father is unemployed, sought such independence through a student job. He applied for around 25 jobs when he first arrived on campus. “What originally was for me to be financially independent became me working to pay Yale,” he said. SUMMERTIME, WHEN THE LIVIN’S NOT EASY The summer after his sophomore year, Marc-André Alexandre ’17 found himself painting walls in his old high school in Montreal. A six-hour car ride away, in New York City, many of his classmates were interning at nonprofits, conducting research or trying their hand at finance. The thought never crossed his mind. Alexandre, a member of the varsity track and field team, spent a portion of the summer training and participating in track meets. As a result, he did not have three months to spend at a paid internship. He returned home in order to make as much money as he could to pay the SIC, and his parents helped contribute the rest. While the self-help portion of the student effort is meant to be met through term-time work, the SIC is intended to derive from student work over the summer. Currently, the student income contribution is $1,625 for freshmen and $3,050 for all other class years. Students interviewed criticized the expectation that they earn money over the summer, saying that it contributed to divergent Yale experiences. Students who must meet the SIC, and who do not have the help of parents, loans or outside scholarships, often cannot consider unpaid summer internships. This is particularly problematic for freshmen and sophomores, grade levels that typically engage in this type of summer work. Hamer-Light said her summer search came down to three factors: job quality, capacity to cover living expenses and ability to pay her $3,000 SIC. An unpaid internship was not in the realm of possibility, Hamer-Light said. She ended up interning at Artspace, a local New Haven non-
profit, through the President’s Public Service Fellowship, which pays its fellows a sizable stipend. She noted that although she was living frugally in New Haven, she barely made enough money to cover the contribution, despite the fellowship being listed as a summer job. “The main issue for me is summer contribution, because that is a very clear barrier to having experiences that will help you with your career later,” she said. “How we build our careers is by making connections during the summer months.” In his first two summers, Blackmon interned for nonprofit advocacy groups, for which he received a small stipend. To pay for his student income contribution he took out loans, noting he did not want to sacrifice his summers for the SIC. He said that as low-income students come to Yale already disadvantaged compared to their wealthier peers, any sort of leveling process that occurs during the year evaporates over the summer. WORKING FOR A CHANGE In his first ever freshman address, University President Peter Salovey spoke of socioeconomic mobility as a central pillar of the university’s mission since its earliest days. He cited the famous Yale historian George W. Pierson, a man known as “Father Yale,” who wrote, “half the boys in each colonial class were from families of no social standing. In the 19th century Yale continued to attract and to care for many of the most modest means.” For many students, Yale seems to have lost sight of its goal to stay affordable for low-income students, and within the last few years, student activism has returned to campus in a variety of forms. After financial aid reform became an important issue in the 2014 Yale College Council presidential election, the YCC formed a task force to identify areas of possible improvement. The report contained a set of findings and a series of recommendations for administrators, and relied
largely on a comprehensive financial aid survey sent to the student body. According to Blackmon, who chaired the task force, the report provided a platform for students to meet with administrators. YCC members had approximately five meetings with Quinlan, Storlazzi and Provost Benjamin Polak, but Blackmon said they were largely frustrating, as the administrators, in his opinion, were reluctant to speak about actual policies or numbers. Instead, they preferred to speak about issues of communication, such as improving the financial aid website. He also pointed to a disconnect between students and administrators. “I used to think the administration recognized there was a problem but couldn’t do much about it. It turns out that’s not the case at all,” he said. “What I realized in those meetings is that they just don’t think it’s a problem. They could do something if they wanted to.” In an email to the News, Quinlan said he and Storlazzi are aware that no system or set of policies could address completely every student’s individual or family situation. He added that “the data we review tell us that we are doing well in meeting the commitment to make Yale affordable for all students.” This year, the executive board of the YCC, Quinlan and Storlazzi established a working group to discuss issues surrounding financial aid. Made of up four students and some administrators, the group works to connect concerns of students with the administration. It has met twice this semester and will meet again next Friday. According to JT Flowers ’17, a member of the working group, the purpose of the group is to provide a comprehensive analysis of financial aid policy with both student and administrators sitting at one table. He added that he has found Quinlan and Storlazzi to be “surprisingly receptive.” In addition to student-administration conversations, activism amongst student groups has increased. Flowers founded an organization, A Leg Even, which works, according to its website, to
combat the challenges inherent in the college experiences of Pell Grant recipients — students designated by the U.S. government as requiring the highest amount of financial aid. The group Students Unite Now, one of whose goals is making Yale more accountable to its constituents, has been particularly active regarding this issue.
FOR MANY STUDENTS, YALE SEEMS TO HAVE LOST SIGHT OF ITS GOAL TO STAY AFFORDABLE FOR LOW-INCOME STUDENTS. In late February the group organized a gathering of 100 students in front of Woodbridge Hall, calling for Yale to eliminate the student effort component of financial aid. It delivered a petition with over 1,100 student signatures calling for the elimination of the contribution to Storlazzi and other administrators, and has also held meetings with residential college masters and Storlazzi. “While Yale tells me constantly that higher education and intellectual pursuits are for me, its financial aid policies — from the application to the work requirement — tell me otherwise, with the jobs and concerns put on our plates on top of school and extracurriculars,” SUN member Jesús Gutiérrez ’16 said in an email. “I want academia to be mine, and I am invested in more students of color teaching and writing books, investing in brighter futures for our communities. How can we do that when the institution itself is responsible for one of our greater obstacles?” AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE Nine hundred miles away, at the University of Chicago, the Odyssey Scholarships program works to increase aid and programming for low-income students through greater financial
support, career guidance, personal mentorship and community support. Created in 2008, the scholarships were formed to eliminate the need for student loans among low-income students. Last year the university enhanced the program further, and students now have no employment requirements for the academic year, freeing their time for academic and extracurricular development. They also are guaranteed paid summer internships or research opportunities after their first year, as well as career and leadership training, although the average University of Chicago student still receives a lower financial aid award than a Yale student. For students at Yale, a comparable program does not exist. While all students interviewed preferred the abolition of the student effort contribution, many said they would be pleased with a reduction. They said a reduction in the student effort would allow them to experience the same Yale that their classmates do, in which jobs do not impede personal or intellectual development. Those interviewed did not agree on prospects of change; two saw a complete elimination of the student effort as unlikely, while others viewed it as a possibility after their time at Yale. “Often what drives Yale to act is Harvard,” Blackmon said. “We joked that to really change financial aid policy we need to get a train to Cambridge and lobby the Harvard administration.” Lozano hopes financial aid reform will help those students who are forced to rely solely on work, not scholarships or family, to pay for their student effort. As a first-generation college student, she said she and her family were unprepared for the whirlwind of financial aid complications. “Yale compared to other schools is helping me so much, and I am grateful for that,” she said. “But the reality is this is further increasing social inequality on campus, and they need to know that.” Contact ROHAN NAIK at rohan.naik@yale.edu .
TIMELINE STUDENT INCOME CONTRIBUTION
//REBECCA YAN //REBECCA YAN
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YSO MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 6 Woolsey Hall // 8 p.m.
Baller / bawler.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Your cousin’s conspiracy theories.
YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
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WEEKEND DWELLS
THE ROAD TO WEALTH // BY SKYLER INMAN
The old Tucsonan man removes his moon-shaped tinted glasses. You can tell he doesn’t want to cry on camera, but his voice wavers and eventually breaks. “My grandmother — they were just poor farmers. Her foster father started a gold mill, but there was no wealth. Just no wealth in the family at all.” His lips tremble. “I just can’t believe it.” The appraiser, a suited man as bland-looking as one would expect an antiques appraiser to be, seems humbled as he shakes the man’s hand in congratulations. “I had no idea,” the old man stutters again, his limp hand bobbing up and down in the appraiser’s. “It was just lying on the back of the chair all this time.” Dan Elias’ voice slides in, and the video cuts to him walking comfortably towards the camera. In his usual professorial manner, he tells PBS viewers that this was one of the highest appraisals in Antiques Roadshow history — an authentic Navajo chief blanket, a true national treasure. He says his goodbyes, and the camera lifts up and away, panning across the antiques show behind him in all of its bustling, hopeful glory. Yellow credit text rolls over the masses of middle-aged roadshow attendees who scramble around, family heirlooms in hand. “Hmmmm,” came my grandmother’s long sound of disapproval between sips of her vitamin drink. “I liked this guy so much more than that new Walberg kid. What are they thinking, putting such a young man in charge of an antiques show? What does he know about antiquity?” I shrugged and made my own noncommittal sound — she had always been the expert on Roadshow, not me. At some point in my early childhood, my grandmother and I forged a tacit social contract regarding my sleepovers: I got all of the sugary children’s cereal my parents would never buy for me,
and, in exchange, she put me on a strict television diet of old British comedies, antiques appraisal shows and other educational public broadcasting. Our daytime TV could vary depending on her mood, but one thing remained constant: the holy hour from 8 to 9 p.m. was reserved for powerwoman and financial guru Suze Orman — my grandmother’s personal hero. “I think you’re old enough that you should learn about finances, Skyler,” she would say as she readied the trundle bed for me. “Every young woman should know how to control her money.” At the age of seven, I hardly had money to control, but I climbed between the soft sheets anyway, and we watched Suze talk money until we drifted off to sleep in our respective twin beds. *** I don’t know when my grandparents stopped sleeping in the same room, but it happened at some point during my childhood — remarkably late, actually, when you consider the length of their marriage and their general distaste for one another. In true 1950s fashion, they were happiest living under the façade of a blissful marriage, no matter how unnecessary and unconvincing that façade might be. For this reason, I imagine they gave up on the idea of a shared bed during one of their earlier moves — it would have been much less conspicuous that way. Besides, with all of the moves, who would notice if my grandmother happened to put her box of toiletries in the second bathroom? Unlike in the stories, where grandparents still live in the homes where they raised their children (homes containing the memories of a whole generation), my mother’s parents never stayed put. I could only gather a few years’ worth of experiences in one place before they moved on to the next. But despite the fact that they branded every new place
as a “step up,” each move brought them to a dwelling with tighter corners, fewer windows and less room for their belongings. The worst of these homes was a small apartment in one of those mid-’70s, stylistically gauche complexes in the strip mall part of town. In what must have been an attempt at exotic glamour, the building’s designer had tried to convert the indoor courtyard into a tropical terrarium. What resulted was a perpetually damp, carpeted faux rainforest. Amazon in an atrium, my mother would mutter as we walked through the mildewed jungle. Their last move was to a ranchstyle home in a rundown neighborhood on the outskirts of Houston, where iron bars latticed the windows of every house. Though there were few positive adjectives that could be used to describe the place, the real estate agent milked it for what it was worth. The house’s “two bed, two bath” layout accommodated their separate sleeping arrangements, and the second bedroom was even small enough that it could (with a little bit of sheet-tucking and pillow-fluffing) pass as an unused guest room. Though the house was oddly squat and exceedingly drab (a suffocating beige covered everything from floor to ceiling), the agent pointed them to the fenced backyard and extensive front lawn. Truly stately, I imagined her saying to them as they nodded along. But even though the new house was less offensive to the senses (my mother’s nauseated disdain was replaced by a simpler aesthetic disagreement), it was essentially no better than any of the dwellings that came before it. This house, like all of the others, was a beacon of false hope for my grandmother — a steppingstone that she thought would lead to financial safe ground. Every move was a chance to make up for the status they had lost over the decades. *** It was a wellknown
fact amongst the aunts and uncles that my grandfather had done a fine job of spending the family’s money. Over the years since their childhoods — a heyday of family cruises down the Nile, exotic trips around the world and custom-designed Tiffany earrings — money in the family had dwindled close to nonexistence. Between the paychecks from my grandmother’s downtown sales job and their combined income from social security, the apartment had already been a stretch.
ered onto it, nothing ever looked quite right. Intellectually, I knew that these items harkened to a “better time” — one in which money hadn’t been a source of stress for my grandparents — but as far back as I could remember, my grandmother had always been looking for ways to make a little extra. Alongside the golden trinkets and antique chaises, I carried boxes of plastic cups that shouted in bold turquoise lettering: VitaLife! After an unsuccessful moneymaking ven-
EVERY MOVE WAS A CHANCE TO MAKE UP FOR THE STATUS THEY HAD LOST OVER THE DECADES. My grandmother waved away her children’s concerns with a bony hand and smoothed her ginger-colored bob. “Oh, don’t you worry about the money. Your father and I are just fine.” And between boxes and packing tape and trips to and from the moving van: “Now be especially careful with the ceramic elephant. Your father and I got that from Thailand — very old.” With the sense that they were accomplices in something irresponsible, my aunts and uncles begrudgingly helped move the out-of-place riches from one unworthy location to the next. The glazed porcelain elephant (the one with which we were ordered to be “especially careful”) was placed carefully at the foot of the carved chess table, standing in odd regality on the plastic parquet floor of the living room. On the bland, beige wall hung the antique wood panel depicting a Chinese myth, its heroes inlaid in careful mother-of-pearl against the black lacquered background. Piles of old books, along with their ornate bookshelves, went into my grandfather’s new study, though the room itself was nothing more than a little foyer between the entrance and the kitchen. And finally, the centerpiece of the room: a goldmosaicked chest that held the many well-used passports of my great-grandparents. This, we positioned in a place of honor atop their empty silverware drawers. The treasures seemed endless, overflowing, and yet, no matter how many relics we piled into the living room, hung on the walls or arranged on side tables, the house never looked any better. We were gilding an ugly frame, and however many shiny distractions we lay-
ture selling vitamin powders, my grandmother had been left with countless plastic cups and a bountiful supply of vitamin drink mix. There were other schemes as well — my uncles lugged in boxes of old manuals on how to sell independent insurance policies, on how to create sales websites (this, for the woman who could barely operate a printer), on how to self-publish, on how to get out of debt … And on top of the stack: a self-help finance book by our beloved TV host, Suze Orman. Underneath Suze’s blonde power-bob and shining teeth was an ambitious title: The Road to Wealth. Looking at the old photographs of their sprawling 1960s Dallas ranch and perusing the stamps in the family passports, it was clear that my mother’s parents had, at one point or another, deviated sharply from the so-called “Road to Wealth.” But despite my grandmother’s desperation to make up for what they had lost, she drew a firm line between what was acceptable and what was treasonous. “Grandmommy,” I asked as we piled into the spare room all of the heirlooms that didn’t fit elsewhere, “Have you ever thought about selling any of these things? Maybe going to an antiques fairs?” Her recoil was immediate. “Oh goodness, honey, there are some things you just don’t sell.” She turned to look at the living room and its meticulously arranged furniture: everything in its final, crowded formation. “Besides, your grandfather and I are doing just fine, don’t you worry.” Contact SKYLER INMAN at skyler.inman@yale.edu .
//CHAI-RIN KIM
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NATIONAL SPICY GUACAMOLE DAY Everywhere // All day
Enjoy a large tub of guacamole in front of your computer.
WKND RECOMMENDS: Cranberry sauce.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND COLUMNS
ASK JACK: HOW TO LAND BAE // BY JACK BARRY DEAR JACK: I fear the sun is setting on my love life. Thus far, all of the potential baes have proved disinterested or cuffed. I doubt my own abilities to find love before the double whammy of Thanksgiving and winter breaks. In my experience, absence does not make the heart grow fonder … absence makes everyone remember how great Peter Shmaloshmey is. I can’t compete with Peter. He’s cool. He’s in a band, lives offcampus and is president of practically everything. If I don’t strike soon, my bae-to-be will only have fantasies of Peter’s silky ’stache to keep her warm and I’ll be left spooning my space heater. How’s a guy to find love before the big freeze? — Netflix and Chilly DEAR CHILLY: Don’t discount the loving warmth provided by your space heater. If you forget to treat it right, bae-to-be won’t be the only one dreaming of Peter’s fine facial hair. Let the space heater be big spoon once in awhile; plug it in somewhere new; turn up the heat a little! Find a way to keep the spark alive without setting anything on fire. If the space heater can’t satisfy all of your needs, consider how you can win bae’s love. If you think you can’t compete with Peter, then knock him out of the competition. I want to tell you the inspiring story of a young woman named Tonya Harding. Tonya had one dream in life: to win an Olympic gold medal. She devoted herself entirely to figure skating. Tonya was nothing if she wasn’t the best. Then one day, a
//CHAI-RIN KIM
rival emerged. Pretty little Nancy glided into town and threatened to take everything away from her. Tonya thought to herself: “Why should Nancy get to skate around like a giant, while the rest of us try not to get smushed under her big feet? What’s so great about Nancy? Hmm? Tonya is just as cute as Nancy. Tonya is just as smart as Nancy. People totally like Tonya just as much as they like
Nancy. And when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody, huh? Because that’s not what figure skating is about. We should totally just stab Nancy!” Of course, Tonya didn’t stab anyone. She had too much grace, beauty and elegance to commit such a heinous crime. In an unrelated event, Nancy was clubbed with a police baton shortly before
the U.S. Championships. Even though police reports and court documents may say otherwise, I believe Tonya’s only crime was envisioning a world where she was on top. Coincidentally, that was a world without Nancy. She achieved something far greater than skating at the Olympics or assaulting figure skaters. She dreamed big. Perhaps not big enough: a true champion
would’ve clubbed the seven other girls that beat her at the Olympics and finished off Nancy, who went on to take home the silver. You must dream even bigger. Open your heart to love and your mind to felonious activities. Envision a world where you are spooning a person, not a space heater. Coincidentally, that may be a world without Peter Shmaloshmey or his mustache. Discover how far
you are willing to go to make your dreams come true. Your bad-boy attitude will shine through in all that you do and the baes will come running just in time for the winter chill. Your friend, Jack Contact JACK BARRY at john.c.barry@yale.edu .
MAD TV: What to bingewatch this Thanksgiving break // BY MADELINE KAPLAN
//DAN GORODEZKY
If I had a nickel for every unoriginal, unfunny sitcom that premiered on network TV in the fall of 2015, I’d be able to afford a full week of Netflix immersion therapy. FOX’s “Grandfathered” is uninteresting. NBC’s “Truth Be Told” is unoriginal. And ABC’s “Dr. Ken” is just plain unfunny. Luckily, there are two hilarious — and very different — new shows that stand out from the muck. One is online-only and the other is on the network that brought us “The Vampire Diaries,” but both offer creativity and spunk and are perfect for a post-Thanksgiving binge-watch. The first, Netflix-exclusive “Master of None,” is the latest entry in the giving-comedians-their-own-sitcoms trend, sanctified in recent years by the
MADELINE KAPLAN MAD TV wildly original “Louie.” Comedian Aziz Ansari (who you may know as Tom on “Parks and Recreation”) has created the perfect conduit for his upbeat energy and nice-guy persona in the character Dev, an aspiring commercial actor. In “Master of None” he refines his innate bounciness into laidback likability, and surrounds Dev with a host of interesting, down-to-earth people. About half of the season’s ten episodes are strung together by a budding romance between Dev
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and music publicist Rachel (Noel Wells). The other half focus on broader issues, like the depiction of Indian people on television. The second episode, about the first-generation immigrant experience, is an especially lovely and dense piece of family dramedy. Ansari’s real-life parents play Dev’s parents — and while they’re clearly not trained actors, they lend the series authenticity and even display some great comedic instincts (his dad pretty much steals the show). Another episode focuses on the everyday sexism faced by women … and the responses of well-meaning but clueless men like Dev. “Master of None” in many ways resembles the bigcity sitcoms of the’70s, from its old-fashioned title sequence to
BRANFORD SCREW
Kelly’s on Crown // 10:30 p.m. A Netflix original.
its emphasis on broad themes and moral issues. But the show is also intensely contemporary in its point of view, embracing those issues with an insight and wit that Ansari wields well. The other great new sitcom of the season, the CW’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” is radically different from “Master of None” (and basically everything else on television). Here’s the pitch, in one run-on sentence as breathless as the show’s “crazy” protagonist: Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom), a successful young lawyer, leaves her cushy New York job for the tacky urban sprawl of West Covina, California after a run-in with her ex-boyfriend from summer camp reminds her that he was the last person to make her truly happy, but when
Rebecca arrives in California she finds that her lost love Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III) is also in love — only, it’s with his gorgeous long-term, yoga-doing girlfriend. Oh, and it’s also a musical. “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” has a razor-sharp wit and selfawareness in spades (Rebecca calls out the title “Crazy ExGirlfriend” for being sexist in the theme song). The songs are always episode highlights, parodying genres from country ballad to Disney-licious pump-up jam. My personal favorite, “Feeling Kinda Naughty,” is a Mariah Carey-infused pop song about Rebecca’s girl crush on Josh’s girlfriend featuring the line, “I wanna kill you and wear your skin like a dress / But then also have you see me in the dress /
And be like, ‘O.M.G., you look so cute in my skin.” “Master of None” has received a great deal of media attention since it premiered last week, but “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” has had a slightly harder time breaking through. Though ratings have improved a bit over the last few weeks, the show’s prospects for renewal may be somewhat bleak. So please, do your part to save this beautiful, hilarious work of art. Check out the show’s music videos on YouTube. Become addicted to its sharp subversion and watch each new episode Monday nights at 8 p.m. EST. And then, I beg of you: tell your friends. Contact MADELINE KAPLAN at madeline.kaplan@yale.edu .
WKND RECOMMENDS: “Loved ones.”
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WEEKEND THEATER
LINGERING GHOSTS, TROUBLING SECRETS // BY ALICE ZHAO
//DENIZ SAIP
“Shining City” is a play about ghosts. There’s a literal ghost, Mary, who can’t seem to leave her husband John alone. But there are also emotional ghosts: secrets, pent-up and festering in the heart, bitter frustrations and perverse longings, unspeakable thoughts and inexcusable actions, all waiting to burst out into the light before the viewer’s eyes. The play’s plot may revolve around spirits, but the true spirits that the story narrows in on belong to the living. Set in a therapist’s office with all the usual trappings — cluttered desk, plain couch, the always-ready box of tissues just within hand’s reach — the play has a feeling of looking in, of a furtive, almost embarrassing fetishization of the private. Here, relationships splinter apart; mar-
riages face their cruelest truths; people unravel, and unravel, and unravel, burdened by guilt, anger, self-loathing and fear. And it’s all for us to see, ghastly and gruesome and ugly — but also helplessly, hopelessly addicting. By far the show’s strongest character is Neasa, the fiancée of Ian, a newly minted therapist who finds himself caught up not just in John’s demons but also in his own. Played by the brilliant Charlotte Juergens ’16, Neasa explodes onto the stage with a force that’s extraordinarily abrasive — and extraordinarily captivating. The actress and the character are indistinguishable: Juergens is Neasa, Neasa is Juergens and it’s hard to believe that she is acting, that the screaming is not out of true fury, that the crying is not out of true despair, that the final, quiet steps out through the door are not real.
Laurance, an honest father and an honest prostitute, makes a brief but striking appearance. Right from the outset, actor Noah Konkus ’18 charms. Twitchy, restless, leg shaking up and down, hands shoved in pockets, the guileless Konkus brings a breath of fresh air to a play dominated by the double-crossing and the double-crossed. His acting is effortless, almost an extension of himself — slick banter, dry humor and an irresistible range of expressions in moments of silence. Konkus’s Laurance steals the spotlight from Ian, played by Aidan Kaplan ’17. “Shining City” is Kaplan’s first play, and for the most part, he pulls off his character with remarkable grace. For the majority of scenes, Ian is fresh-faced and earnest, and Kaplan carries these scenes with wide eyes, anxious smiles and poorly timed
but well-meaning interjections. However, scenes that require more depth come off slightly flat. In particular, Ian and Neasa’s confrontation feels more like a one-sided battle, with Juergens hoisting most of the scene. One exception is Ian’s encounter with Laurance, during which Kaplan really settles into his character: the entire 15 minutes is poignant, touching and all too short. Kendrick Kirk ’17, who plays John, grounds the entire show. He is the steady voice that welcomes viewers back from the most painful drama onstage. John is perhaps the most challenging character to portray in “Shining City”: he is at once friendly and despicable, cognizant and dense, but Kirk manages the whole affair with professional ease. His every movement might be calculated — the slipping-off of his shoes, the wild gesticulating of his hands —
but it all appears natural, seamless. While in some moments Kirk falters as John (John’s horror at being haunted by his late wife doesn’t seem to reach full strength), in other moments, Kirk completely awes. After all, carrying on a monologue for 40 minutes and still managing to keep audience members on the edge of their seats is no simple task. While “Shining City” for the most part is expertly directed by Conor Bagley ’16 and expertly produced by Damla Ozdalga ’18, the play’s more technical aspects have room for improvement. The music — when not used as a plot point — often detracts from the scenes themselves. In one scene, Ian and John have a tender leave-taking that comes off more cheesy than satisfying, simply because of the Christmas carols in the background. The play’s
set changes are also uneven. While some of these set changes are fluid and even unexpectedly gorgeous (one in particular features Kaplan moving in the shadows, quietly rearranging his desk and adjusting his tie), other set changes are slow, clunky and awkward. “Shining City” is not an easy play. It’s not fast-paced and certainly not action-filled. However, it’s a fascinating portrayal of ordinary life rendered extraordinary, not just by ghosts but also by secrets. These are troubled individuals, living troubled lives, in troubled circumstances. We’re not meant to understand them completely — not even to begin to understand them. And that’s okay. After all, we’re just peeking in. Contact ALICE ZHAO at alice.zhao@yale.edu .
The compassion of Annie Baker // BY NOAH KIM Why does every contemporary production about generational anxiety seem to employ artistic — and therefore intellectual — ennui? From Girls to the films of Noah Baumbach, almost all socalled highbrow comedies nowadays showcase boringly narcissistic hipsters with vaguely artistic tendencies, stuck in self-constructed ruts of laziness, boredom and fear. For characters like Hannah Horvath and Frances Halliday, dreams of artistic transcendence come off as egotistical and ridiculous. The audience is invited to sneer at these ridiculous fuckups who dream of any sort of spiritual or aesthetic fulfillment. Does all this result from a sort of bias towards the humanities (a cultural pre-professionalism, if you will)? Or does it result from a certain self-consciousness on behalf of show-/film-writers, who attempt to compensate for fears of wasted lives by exaggerating the wastefulness of the creative impulse? Who knows? ’Tis not for a mere WKND beat reporter to say. Annie Baker’s “The Aliens,” currently playing at the Off-Broadway Theater, initially appears to be a similar comedy about the awkwardness of interpersonal interaction. However, if the play begins as a sniggering parody, it eventually morphs into a delicate and subtle exercise in compassion, a cold corrective to the cynical, sneering generational comedies saturating the tube. The play’s central subjects are KJ (Edward Columbia ’18, with
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blinding scruff) and Jasper (Iason Togias ’16), two stoic bums who spend their days hanging in the alley outside a coffee shop. Then awkward high-schooler Evan (Taylor Rogers ’17) stumbles into their lives. There is no immediately apparent plot, and whatever action does occur seems to evolve organically out of character and situation rather than narrative necessity. Conversation is appropriately meandering and aimless, and a good third of the production is conducted in discomfiting silence. Jae Shin’s adept, minimalistic set design effectively allows the audience to hang with these people as they strum guitars, kick rocks, spike teas with hallucinogens, light and exhale cigarettes and in general do whatever comes to mind in a quiet, desperate bid to fill time. Exposition is dispersed through tangential asides and mumbled monologues rife with “like”s and “I don’t know”s. The audience eventually begins to discern the long and complex history of the two loiterers, who are holding onto each other as much due to desperation as friendship. KJ is the more dependent party in the relationship, a childish and laconic figure who dropped out of college after suffering a psychological breakdown. Jasper is more acerbic, a self-proclaimed novelist obsessed with Bukowski (and who behaves exactly the way one might expect, knowing that he’s a selfproclaimed novelist obsessed with Bukowski). Togias’ performance
is calm and controlled even in the midst of emotional outbursts, which he executes in the form of periodic glimpses into the character’s smoldering rage and frustration. Particularly noteworthy about the production is that its characters — although amusing — never become objects of easy irony. The production’s key shift from naturalistic parody to powerful character study occurs in a marvelous scene during which Jasper reads a chapter of his novel out loud on the Fourth of July. One might expect the novel to be an inane Bukowski rip-off, judging from the satire of earlier scenes. And, in a certain sense, it is. But it’s also more. It becomes an instrument that the three friends utilize to bond over a shared sense of alienation and societal disillusionment. Despite a lack of self-awareness, Jasper’s lines brim with passion, and it’s difficult not to crack a smile as KJ, lowing with enthusiasm, lifts his friend into the air and proclaims him a genius. In Annie Baker’s worldview, creative aspirations are not to be laughed at. They’re genuine yearnings upon which people have staked their lives in desperate bids for meaning. This play, like much of the playwright’s oeuvre, is an exercise in humanity that seeks to change the way we view the dropouts, the bums, the alienated and the fuck-ups in our lives. Contact NOAH KIM at noah.kim@yale.edu .
BEADING LESSONS NACC // 1 p.m.
WKND will bead there. So should you.
//KAIFENG WU
WKND RECOMMENDS: Women in the kitchen.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015 · yaledailynews.com
WEEKEND BACKSTAGE
GETTING UNDER THE HELMET // BY SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN
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n America, the last few years of high school center on college applications and acceptances. In Israel, high-
school seniors matriculate into the military by completing a series of tests that determines their placement. While we contemplate the professions to which we will dedicate our lives, they contemplate the prospect of losing theirs. At 23 years old, Lt. D* serves as a deputy company commander in an elite unit. American-born raised in Israel, Lt. D reflects on his five years in service in the Israeli Defense Forces and its lasting effect on his character and his identity. *Name withheld for confidentiality.
//SAM LAING
Q: Can you tell us a little about yourself? A: I was born in Forest Hills, Queens to parents that were born in Israel. I grew up attending regular public school, and played after-school sports. I was a Yankees and Jets fan. When I turned 14, my parents decided that we were moving to Israel. Now, they pumped it into my mind since I was a child so I wasn’t too shocked. My first year in Israel, ninth grade, is a blur so I guess I was shocked but didn’t realize it at the time. From then on, I lived in Tel Aviv a n d co m p l e te d h i g h
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school there. When 12th grade came, everyone started talking about the military. I had my first tryout, got in, went back to high school and spent four months after I graduated resting. When I was drafted my mom and my dad cried. Q: How does the tryout process work? A: I’ll compare it to college. Here, in 12th grade you talk about what college you want to go to and take the SATs. In Israel, to get into most of the elite units there are different kinds of tests, I’ll call them tryouts. They’re not like basketball tryouts; they’re a mixture of physical and mental tests. They average from two days to a weeklong. X amount of people come and Y amount of people get in. They’re very tough. It’s gotten to a point that in high school there are programs run independently by people for those who want to train for the military and for these tests. There’s infant r y, artillery, tanks.
A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK THAT WE DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT WE’RE DOING AND ARE JUST DOING IT BECAUSE WE ARE TOLD TO DO IT. THAT WE AREN’T MORAL AND WE VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS. THAT’S JUST SIMPLY NOT TRUE. WE VALUE LIFE MORE THAN ANYTHING.
There are different units. Q: What was your test like? A: I took one test when I was in 12th grade, which was two days long. You’re still in high school, so it’s pretty scary. You arrive with another thousand people. Beforehand, you think you’re the only one who is going to be bad but when you get there, you realize no one knows what is going on. The pressure is high after because you finish and then you go home and after four months you get an answer. Q: How do parents feel about their kids feeling drafted in such a violent time? A: I don’t think they say as much as they fear. They say sometimes. You can tell because they are always really happy to see you. When you don’t call they get mad. Because it’s mandatory and they served in the army and my grandparents served in the army, it makes sense to them. They’re still afraid though. Q: How do you feel about the draft as a system? A: The military gives the whole society a blank slate because we dress the same and have the same haircuts and we’re all treated the same by our commanders. Because the country is so small and is such a tough neighborhood and it’s so rooted in the society that you are going to be drafted. For now I’m for i t .
Because I see what it does to people and it changes them in good ways. The whole point is to get us all together to complete the bigger mission. You feel proud because you know you are fighting for a righteous cause; you’re defending a righteous cause. You feel connected. The bigger mission connects everyone from all backgrounds; it doesn’t matter what happened before. You feel in retrospect, you always feel challenged because it isn’t easy. Q: How has being a soldier over the last five years changed you? A: I’ve learned, in my mind, how to be thorough, how to delegate — not just robotically — but to check and advise. It has shown me what I can do physically and mentally. It has shown me what being a real friend is. It really builds your character. We’re all shaped differently because we’re all different humans. In the end, you’ll be with your closest guys in a unit. The point is every experience is parallel. Have you ever questioned what you’ve been told to do? Personally, no. The military in Israel has a code of command such that when you think something is wrong, you can say something about it. On top of that, in general, day-to-day, a commander can tell you do something. If you have a different opinion on it, you can give you own input. It’s an open, two-way channel. In the end, the commander has the upper hand in deciding. The commanders want the lower ranks the what and you are supposed to act the how. You’re supposed to think, not be a robot. Q: What do you believe are the most common misconceptions about the Israeli army both within Israel and America? A: That we aren’t people and that we don’t
think. I cannot count the amount of times I’d rather be somewhere else — at home, watching TV, etc. A lot of people think that we don’t care about what we’re doing and are just doing it because we are told to do it. That we aren’t moral and we violate human rights. That’s just simply not true. We value life more than anything. Q: How many years do you serve? Why did you serve extra years? A: I served three mandatory years and two extra. I felt that it is my duty to be in the military because it is mandatory. I was told that I have the capabilities and I’m here already serving my country and there is a need for officers. So why not do it? I can give more and I am capable of doing it. I want to give back. Being a soldier is challenging, rewarding and tracking. Being an officer augments that. It challenges you more, shows you more and gives you more responsibility. That’s something hard to give up on, especially when you realize you have a chance to be a character in someone else’s life. My parents were commanders. You’re teaching someone from nothing. You want to give them the values and the motives of the IDF and you want to be the one to do it. If someone is going to do it, why not you, if you can? Q: Having lived in both countries, do you feel more American or Israeli? What role has the army played in your identity? A: The army has played a huge role. If I felt more American beforehand, now I don’t. I spent five years physically protecting my country. The fact that I want to live in Israel as an adult says it all. There will always be something American about me; I can tell from everyday doings that there is. I come here now and I don’t feel like a terrorist in America but I don’t feel at home now. Nothing is weird to me except for the bad coffee but at the same time I feel more comfortable there now than here. Contact SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN at sofia.braunstein@yale.edu .
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