Yale Daily News — Week of Oct. 2

T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 5 · yaledailynews.com

Webcasts wrap up 150th anniversary of women at Yale

BY MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO STAFF REPORTER

COURTESY OF MARA LAVITT

The yearlong 50WomenAtYale150 initiative culminated in a historic series of webcasts featuring Yale alumni from diverse backgrounds, fields and experiences.

Yale Club engages members virtually

This weekend, a historic series of webcasts concluded the yearlong 50WomenAtYale150 initiative, a program launched to celebrate 150 years since women were first admitted into Yale University and 50 years since the beginning of undergraduate co-education at Yale College.

The commemorations, originally intended to be held at the Schwarzman Center, were livestreamed between Sept. 24 and Sept. 27. They featured Yale alumni hailing from a vast diversity of backgrounds, fields and experiences. Among the invited speakers were former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton LAW ’73, Academy Award winner Jodie Foster ’85 and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador and poet Emi SEE 50Y150 PAGE 4

City honors William Lanson

COURTESY OF STUART SEMMEL

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Yale Club of New York City, a private clubhouse for Yale alumni and affiliates, had to close its physical location.

BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER Although the Yale Club of New York City, a private clubhouse for Yale alumni and affiliates, has temporarily closed in light of

the coronavirus pandemic, the club has found ways to engage its members in virtual formats.

The Yale Club of New York City closed its physical location on March 20 in order to adhere to the health and safety guide-

On-campus sophomores navigate new housing situation JORDAN FITZGERALD CONTRIBUTING REPORTER With the class of 2024 living in their residential colleges, on-campus

sophomores have found an unlikely home in the Lanman-Wright Hall courtyard on Old Campus.

SEE SOPHOMORE PAGE 5

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Benjamin Franklin, Pauli Murray, Silliman and Timothy Dwight colleges are offering their sophomores the chance to move back behind college gates.

lines surrounding COVID-19.

This meant that its 3 restaurants, 138 guest rooms, fitness facilities, library, banquet rooms and more are inaccessible to the Club’s SEE CLUB PAGE 4

BY SIMISOLA FAGBEMI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER This weekend, the Elm City dedicated a new statue on Farmington Canal to William Lanson — a prominent 19th century Black engineer, entrepreneur and civil rights activist from New Haven.

On Saturday morning, city leaders and community members gathered at the Farmington Canal Trail to unveil a 7-foot bronze statue commemorating the life and legacy of Lanson.

Oakland-based sculptor Dana King created the statue as part of an effort SEE LANSON PAGE 5

Students detail mental health concerns

BY ROSE HOROWITCH STAFF REPORTER

“One of the consequences of having untreated mental health issues is it’s often hard to take the initiative to reboot mental health treatment when one is not receiving treatment,” Gigante told the News.

“As somebody who has benefited a lot from regular mental health treatment, losing that at a time when

mental health became more difficult certainly made an already difficult time worse.”

Along with the physical health challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, the past few months have heightened the need for mental

When the pandemic hit and students went home, Scott Gigante’s GRD ’23 weekly group therapy sessions were cancelled. Six months later, they have yet to start back up.

SEE MENTALHEALTH PAGE 5 Amidst the confusion, Gigante also lost touch with the individual counselor from Yale Health he was seeing on a biweekly basis. It took about two or three phone calls and three to four months for Gigante to hear from his counselor again.

Last week, Yale Mental Health and Counseling announced plans to be more accessible to students.

The Yale College Council and YMHC unveiled a joint initiative to increase access to mental health care. In the coming weeks, students can request sameday intake appointment times on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The clinician that evaluates them will remain their contact person until they are assigned a new counselor.

YASMINE HALMANE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER But Gigante did not have access to these new reforms during the Yale Mental Health and Counseling last week unveiled a joint initiative with the Yale College Council to increase access to mental health care. past summer.

CROSS CAMPUS

INSIDE THE NEWS

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY 1967.

SCIENTIST

A campus organization named the Yale Draft Refusal Committee distributes a "We Won't Go" pledge to students and faculty under the age of 35. An excerpt of this pledge reads, "We … believe that the United States is waging an unjust war in Vietnam. We cannot in conscience participate."

A new statue now stands on Farmington Canal. It is dedicated to William Lanson — a prominent 19th century Black engineer, entrepreneur and civil rights activist.

Three Yale affiliates have been named as two of the 100 most inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America by Cell Mentor in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Page 3 UNIVERSITY

ART

An indefinite closure of art studios, labs and museums forced art professors and students to rethink how they teach, create and share their work.

Page 7 ARTS

BRAIN

Yale researchers found that the coronavirus can directly infect brain cells, potentially eliciting neurological symptoms observed in 40 to 60 percent of COVID-19 patients.

Page 8 SCITECH

ATHLETE

In Phase I of the Ivy League's reopening plan, studentathletes can now engage in up to an hour a day of training compliant with social distancing measures. Page 10 SPORTS

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION G U E S T C O L U M N I S T AW U O R O N G U R U

GUE ST COLUMNIST DILGE BUKSUR

Black woman’s eulogy

A pink bubble?

I

n my native village of Kendu Bay, Kenya, funerals are meant to canonize the dead. The first rite of many is performed by women. Early at dawn, they arrive at the homestead of the deceased to wail, pacing about and lamenting death — the sound gives one goosebumps, and it seems to last forever. We call it “giyo.” The literal meaning of this word is to howl — like a wolf or dog. A grief so deep all you can do is open your mouth and groan.

Six months ago, a Black woman was shot by law enforcement officers in her home. She died next to a man that she loved, a man that was trying to protect her. Last week, the law denied her any chance to die with dignity. My instinct is to weep loudly.

So is my mother’s. Together, we pause to pace the floor and yell about it.

Inside ourselves, however, we sit in an empty room and weep.

I am weeping now.

A more cynical area of my mind isn’t surprised. When have Black women ever been allowed anything except servility? Every day we must add more burdens to our shoulders, including our own.

Those of us who have families must keep their daughters safe, their sons and fathers alive. Those of us that are young must dream each dream with several grains of salt.

All of us second-guess every second of our lives.

Every year of my life since I gained consciousness of my Blackness, I have constantly had to ask myself — does my goal accommodate me?

I find myself trying to preempt the bullets, like a fly trying to find shelter in the rain. I want to write. Is writing a career for me? Are the things I want things that accommodate Black women? A career, a future, joy, love — were these things that happened to girls with darker skin?

And then Breonna Taylor was shot in her home, and my fears were confirmed.

Breonna was everything that I have ever wanted to be. A Black woman who was not just successful in her job, but loving her job. A Black woman with a lover who took care of her. A Black woman with a family that was proud of her. A Black woman who allowed herself to dream, to set goals and to excel at them.

When she died, all I could think about was how her lover could not save her. Her family could not save her. And now, the only people who could give her dignity — the three judges who could have spoken the truth — have turned their backs on her. All I could think about was myself, and other Black women, seeing ourselves in her, seeing our deaths over and over and over again. The end of dreams.

Because I am a Black woman, I have allowed Breonna’s death to eat me. Because I am a Black woman, Breonna’s death equals mine. Her treatment equals mine. Her glory equals mine. I cannot not let her die this way.

I am trying to honor Breonna the way I know best: “giyo.” I have allowed myself to be consumed with the thought that someone like me could be asleep one moment and dead the next. I have allowed myself

to spend my nights weeping, almost wailing, at the fact that my sister died and has been treated like an animal.

Have we taken time to grieve Breonna? Have we taken time to be sad about her, not as a political metaphor, but as a person? As a Black woman who shouldn’t have died? Our activism, although altruistic in every form, has taken away the humanity of this woman. By allowing her to enter the metaphysical world, we have forgotten what is most important — the loss of human life.

Black women, in particular, have historically been denied this ability to grieve. On the outside, we are talking smack, being angry, being violent. On the inside, however, we are expressing a deep and heartfelt loss. This grief is always used against us, to show that we are too emotional, too volatile, for our thoughts and feelings to hold water.

Stifled, we take this emotion to the streets, to social media — we turn it into public dissent. We are angry, but not too angry. We reign ourselves in to not make anyone too uncomfortable. Bypassing this important stage, however, actively denies the deceased any humanity.

Instead of accessing our emotions, we choose to use Breonna as a poster for our ideological battles.

One of the more radical forms of resistance for Black women, therefore, is expressing that grief. Allowing ourselves to recognize our pain and not hide it from the world could be the strongest weapon in this fight for our lives. When the world is forced to confront us, people are reminded of the person who died, not just the

HAVE WE TAKEN TIME TO GRIEVE BREONNA? HAVE WE TAKEN TIME TO BE SAD ABOUT HER, NOT AS A POLITICAL METAPHOR, BUT AS A PERSON? AS A BLACK WOMAN WHO SHOULDN’T HAVE DIED? political martyr or the meme.

During “giyo,” the women pace around the compound and beat their chests. Sometimes they sing for hours, of everything that the deceased was and everything they have left behind. They sing of their glory, of their legacy and of the promise that the community will carry on their vision.

Breonna, like every Black woman, deserves this.

AWUOR ONGURU is a first year in Berkeley College. Contact her at awuor.onguru@yale.edu .

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H

i mom! Ah yes, everything is perfect. Oh no, the food is completely fine, it’s just a bit different. Yeah, yes I feel like I’ve already adjusted.

Classes? Things are a bit busy here, but I’m completely managing. Yeah I’m definitely having fun and spending time for myself. Nothing to even worry about, love you, byee!

At the end of every FaceTime, I hang up with this pink world of perfection. But as I hear the beep sound, the reality of my endless to-do list sinks in. I pour the fourth mug of coffee that day. It’s 2 a.m...

Is everything really okay? Are we really completely managing? Or more importantly — do we really need to be completely managing?

Going to college has many costs financially, psychologically, and even socially. Choosing to go to college is a major decision, and with COVID, the stakes are dramatically raised.

As an international student from Turkey, this choice was even harder for me and my family. I have always wanted to get my college education in the US but it was only when my admission package came that my family realized their daughter was leaving. With America’s response to COVID, my family’s worries about sending me here only increased.

But despite their concerns and tears, they let me leave because of Yale. To my family, Yale seemed like this perfect place: where people excel at academics, spend time on their personal needs, work out, have fun, read for pleasure, go to parties, arrange trips, etc. A place where people are happy all the time.

I, too, believed in this fairytale. For many of us, college is a place where we “should” be doing everything we hope to do. We expect ourselves to get involved in various extracurriculars, be active in our friend

groups, attend every social event, spend hours just having fun conversations, have the best academic record, and easily plan all our responsibilities. We want to change and grow, continually striving to be the best version of ourselves.

When people constantly strive for this illusion of “best college experience,” they end up acting happier than they really are. I understand the undeniable urge to appear as a burst of positivity. But this so-called happiness is a self-generated burden.

I did not realize this easily.

Personally, and I am sure for many others whose families have given so much for them to be here, it feels like a responsibility to be at your best all the time.

And because my home is thousands of kilometres away, all my family, friends, and neighbors are curious about my experiences and memories. They all want to hear how perfect everything is, not how I struggled to get my p-sets done. They wait for instances that prove how good of a choice I made and how their children should take me as an example of success. The downs are underestimated because we feel like no one wants to hear about those, even ourselves. Apart from all of this, I too want to make sure every checkbox of my ideal college experience is ticked off.

But while trying to pursue this artificial happiness, we do not realize that we are constantly rushing and trying to catch up a perfect life - something we don’t seem to be able to catch.

This past week, I saw clearly for the first time that I was trying to live in a pink bubble. I formed some sort of a protection mechanism — I filtered what I said about my life here to my family and friends, and excluded or trivialized the challenges. But that’s exhausting. It is exhausting because you are trying to convince yourself of something that’s not real.

It is understandable to want to feel like we’ve made the right decision, and that we’re living the time of our lives: coming to college was a big decision for all of us. But negatives can and should be a part of our experience. After all, how will we learn and grow?

Everyone is so busy acting like everything is going just the way they imagined that they don’t realize the reality of what is happening. I understand why we may want to adjust our experiences in our mind, but we have to be real with at least ourselves.

The easiest thing we can do is to make sure we understand the reality and not romanticize the problems. Grinding until the next morning is not a Yale thing, sleep deprivation is not an Ivy League culture, thinking about ten other responsibilities during class is not as okay as we might think. We should remember to take a moment and acknowledge what is making us stress out.

How many many invitations did we say yes to, even though our schedules were screaming no?

The first step to find a solution for a potential problem, or even a minor inconvenience, is to actively see the problem as it is.

There will be times when you will feel overwhelmed or down.

It may have already happened to you, maybe it is happening as you are reading this or maybe you have a bit more time until you feel this. Things will feel like they’re not going the way they “should.” Relax — if it feels like things are out of your control, that’s actually the way it should be sometimes. Don’t put up a front, saying that you got this, because sometimes, you just don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Yale isn’t a pink world, it’s just not that pink.

And that’s okay.

DILGE BUKSUR is a first-year in Saybrook College. Contact her at dilge.buksur@yale.edu .

The pandemic is a flop W

e live in unprecedented times, unprecedentedly unprecedented times, in fact. So unprecedented are these times that there is an unprecedented use of the word unprecedented. So unprecedented is that unprecedented use of the word unprecedented that its use is starting to feel really, really precedented. Let’s talk about that.

This is a column I have been meaning to write for a while now. Admittedly, the world around us has changed a lot since I first thought it up, but the central conceit still works: we get bored too easily and the things that often bore us are actually really, really important.

We are obsessed with new things. Not too new, of course.

But new enough to excite and familiar enough to be legible.

Those who create the things we are most obsessed with are “gifted at creating moments of meaning by marrying new and old, anxiety and understanding,” writes journalist Derek Thompson in his book “Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction.” The best hit makers, argues Thompson, are “architects of familiar surprises.”

Here is a familiar surprise: We just hit 200,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths. Familiar because deaths from COVID-19 have been climbing since March and — I have not taken YData, so do not quote me on this — when lines go up for a long time without stopping they usually continue to go up. Concerning the second part, I wish I could say I wasn’t surprised. It would be really cool, cynical and wise to say that I knew it would be this bad from the start. But I did not.

Remember when the US hit 100,000 deaths from COVID19, how big of a deal that was?

The New York Times ran a really stunning first-page where they listed out names and obituaries. Did you see the display the Times made for 200,000? No, probably not, because they did not make one. Why not?

Frankly, I think they did not do the spread for 200,000 because it would have been boring. I

mean, they have to sell papers, right?

To be honest, if you had the 100,000 deaths edition, you could just ERIC squint and it KREBS would look the same as The pen/ the 200,000 pin merger deaths edition. Upending business as usual to commemorate those we have lost is so last month!

Of course, it is not just the New York Times — or “the media” as a whole — that suffers from such deference to boredom. Nor are they the worst offenders. A criticism of “the media” needs to go a lot deeper than “they like clickbait,” but this is not really a criticism of “the media.” I, you, America as a whole, we just cannot help but get bored.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is currently ordering a reopening of the economy — bars and restaurants to full capacity, kneecapping local mask mandates — despite the fact that Florida is averaging hundreds more cases per day than in June. I guess fighting the virus just got old. Late last month up on Capitol Hill, the Federal government let the extended unemployment benefits that kept millions of Americans from destitution run out with no plan to replace them.

Rather, the Republicans killed the program and the Democrats got tired of telling them “stop!”

I know what you are thinking.

Amidst all this yawning indifference, are there any exceptions to the rule?

One institution that actually does a really good job of fighting this urge is your favorite pillar of American society: the Yale Daily News. If you feel like you have seen a thousand iterations of the “being FGLI at Yale is hard,” or “being a person of color at Yale is hard” or “being at Yale is hard” Yale Daily News column, it is because you have. You have

read thousands because people have written thousands and people have written thousands because there are thousands of lived experiences worth writing about. Is every column an unprecedented piece of journalism that goes where no column has gone before? No. Does that make any particular one less valuable? No. When we pretend that news must be new and that all that is new is news, we stunt our ability to connect the dots, to admit that things often are not as big of a discontinuity as we would like them to be. It is easier to lament just how unprecedented a crisis is than to admit that we just failed to see it coming, failed to prevent it and failed to stop it.

If it was hard being first-generation at Yale yesterday, and it is still hard today, we can take a guess as to what it will be like tomorrow. If the pandemic was raging on yesterday and raging on today, I think we know what tomorrow holds — and barring any action — every day after that.

Of course, it is a big jump from News columns to a national response to a pandemic. But, all kidding and snark aside, the throughline is there. We need to get acquainted with, get interested in and perhaps even obsess over the ‘boring’ things, the things that happen every day — precisely because they happen every single day. As we slouch into month seven of this crisis, people in power have gotten bored while the rest get busy working, coughing or dying.

So far, I am on a five-column streak about the pandemic. I would be on six if my editor had not squashed the first pitch in February as the News had already published one on the pandemic (no hard feelings). If past behavior is any indicator of future behavior, I have a good guess as to what my next column will be about.

Maybe I will just recycle this one. It would prove my point.

ERIC KREBS is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College. His column runs on alternate Mondays. Contact him at eric.krebs@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“The key to humor is often self-loathing or sarcasm. In a sense, that’s how self-loathing is made palatable.” JAMES GRAY AMERICAN FILM DIRECTOR

Yale affiliate recognized as inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists

YALE NEWS

Yale professors De La Cruz and Colón-Ramos have been recognized in a list of 100 inspiring Latinx scientists in the U.S.

BY ADAM LEVINE CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Two Yale faculty members — Daniel Colón-Ramos, professor of neuroscience and cell biology, and Enrique De La Cruz, chair and professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and head of Branford College — and Yale alum Robert Fernandez GRD ’15 ’20 have been recognized in a list of 100 inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in the U.S. by Cell Mentor. Cell Mentor is an online resource provided by Cell Press and Cell Signaling Technology with blog-style resources for early-career scientists.

In addition to strong scientific research, Colón-Ramos, De La Cruz and Fernandez have all made extensive scientific outreach efforts through their work in making science more accessible to the Hispanic/Latinx community. “[Colón-Ramos] is a fantastic mentor and does a lot to make

science more accessible … not just science accessible to people who don’t have opportunities, but also science accessible to the lay public … so that they understand the value of science,” Sreeganga Chandra, deputy chair and associate professor of neuroscience, said.

In his lab, Colón-Ramos studies the synapse — the connection between neurons. He examines how synapses are formed and how they are modified when a memory is created. Colón-Ramos’ lab studies C. elegans, a nematode worm with a simple nervous system of only 302 neurons — humans have billions — and about 5,000 chemical synapses. According to the lab’s website, Colón-Ramos has 49 publications with the lab.

According to Sterling Professor of Cell Biology James Rothman, Colón-Ramos’ work regarding synapse formation and “self-assembly mechanisms that spatially couple energy production to energy uti-

Sleep science and the impact of online classes

BY SIMISOLA FAGBEMI AND ANNA XU CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS For remote Yale students, dealing with sleep disruptions due to time zone differences can be a learning challenge.

Meir Kryger, a Yale sleep expert and Yale School of Medicine physician, and Suman Baddam, Assistant Professor of Clinical Child Psychiatry, co-instruct the course “The Mystery of Sleep,” which explores the relationship between sleep and well-being. Disruptions to sleep schedules can negatively impact attention, memory and cognitive awareness. Kryger said that there are a number of students in his class who study remotely and must battle time differences.

“When my class starts, which is 4 o’clock in the afternoon, in Taiwan it’s like 4 o’clock in the morning,” Kryger said. “And the student is actually there wide awake and alert, participating in the class …

They seem to be asking questions when it’s appropriate. Even though the schedule is crazy.”

Alongside the ways that inconsistent sleep schedules can harm students’ well-being, Baddam also said blue light can impact circadian rhythms, which raises another concern for Yalies taking virtual classes at late hours. He cited a study that showed that the light from a Kindle is enough to disrupt one’s sleep patterns in the evenings.

According to Healthline, circadian rhythms are changes in physical and behavioral patterns that follow a 24-hour cycle. These include the release of hormone melatonin, which makes people sleepy.

Remote students Mehmed Can Olgac ’22 and Sena Sugiono ’24 are located in Turkey and Indonesia, respectively. Because of the large time difference, Olgac and Sugiono must go to extreme measures to adjust.

“I have one class that ends at 1

a.m. in the morning on Mondays, so like by the end of that class I’m very exhausted,” Olgac said. “I don’t usually remember the second half of the class.”

Not only has Olgac faced difficulty staying awake for classes, he said his home responsibilities also make it more challenging to keep up with schoolwork and remember the commitments he has made. Yet despite the downsides of studying remotely, Sugiono said in an interview with the News that there are also some benefits. Since his schedule is “reversed,” he can work with no distractions.

“Now, I’m actually enjoying it because I get to concentrate on my studies in a very quiet and tranquil situation,” Sugiono wrote in a text message to the News. “Just [because] no one is up [from] 2-4 a.m.”

He told the News that he sleeps from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time, while juggling extracurriculars in addition to classes.

As a piece of advice to undergraduates abroad studying remotely, Baddam suggested creating a consistent schedule for oneself to avoid sporadic sleep disturbances.

“They should basically have their sleep time for their biological day as a shift worker and just stay up all night for the whole week,” he told the News, adding that while “it’s still bad,” it is less harmful than constantly changing one’s sleep schedule.

He also noted that regularly getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night is something that any undergraduate can do to enhance their learning, even if they think they are doing fine, as “it’s hard to recognize how tired we are.”

Kyrger and Baddam teach their Cognitive Science course on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

Contact SIMISOLA FAGBEMI at simi.fagbemi@yale.edu. and ANNA XU at anna.xu@yale.edu .

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Yale sleep experts comment on the challenges enrolled Yalies living in different time zones face.

lization” is receiving the international attention that it deserves.

Beyond research, Colón-Ramos co-founded Ciencia Puerto Rico, a network of Hispanic scientists which works to promote scientific advancement, education and careers in Puerto Rico. According to Colón-Ramos, it currently has close to 40,000 members.

“I have collaborated with many colleagues in establishing mentoring programs, in arguing for the democratization of access to science, in arguing that all societies should benefit from science, that science shouldn’t be structured as an enterprise that implicitly or explicitly excludes certain demographics or groups from participating or benefiting from the scientific enterprise,” Colón-Ramos said. “It’s a fundamental humanistic request that’s part of our culture.”

De La Cruz’s lab uses kinetics and thermodynamics to under-

stand how mechanical forces affect chemical interactions and reactions of biological molecules.

He also examined processes that were previously thought to be incomplete, such as “how regulatory proteins break actin filaments or how helicases use ATP to rearrange RNA.” In addition to his work in the lab, De La Cruz serves as a mentor to underrepresented communities as well as his graduate students, according to Mark Hochstrasser — professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Hochstrasser said this success is something that members of his department are “all proud of.”

Nandan Pandit GRD ’16 ’20, a postdoctoral associate in De La Cruz’s lab, elaborated on the guidance that De La Cruz gives to his students.

“Enrique always is looking out for the students and really prioritizing their success while still balancing the success of the lab overall … I think he really deserves this award,” Pandit said.

The third honoree, Fernandez, is currently working on postdoctoral research at Columbia University.

Fernandez is studying how transcription factors regulate neuronal identity in C. elegans.

Fernandez also co-founded an initiative called Científico Latino, which aims to help underrepresented minority students navigate higher education. The site includes resources such as a database for fellowships, research programs, post-baccalaureate programs and diversity preview events.

The site also features a blog with stories and advice from underrepresented minority students and STEM faculty. Additionally, the website contains webinars aimed at preparing students for graduate school, fellow-

ship and doctorate applications.

De La Cruz also serves as a faculty adviser for this program.

“One of our biggest initiatives ... is our [Graduate Student] Mentorship Initiative, where we pair you with a mentor to look over your graduate application,” Fernandez said. “It’s open to any underrepresented students, not just based on ethnicity, but low-income, first-generation, sexual orientation, disability.”

The program was piloted last year with 86 scholars participating, helping 76 get accepted into graduate school programs. This year the program is serving around 300 people.

All three scientists emphasized the importance of diversity in the laboratory. According to De La Cruz, a lack of diversity in the laboratory not only creates situations that “cry injustice” but also cause labs to miss out on tremendous talent.

“I never learned in my biology class about any Latinx scientists, so if we don’t see ourselves in science, starting off in elementary, middle school and high school, how exactly are we going to believe that we can get there?” Fernandez said. “What I love about my lab right now at Columbia [is that] it’s super diverse, and you get all of these different viewpoints, and that’s what makes science great, learning from each other, different cultures, different backgrounds.Science is not just one way of thinking. It’s a multidisciplinary way of thinking and different viewpoints help you.”

The full list of inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists can be found on Cell Mentor’s website.

Contact ADAM LEVINE at a.levine@yale.edu .

Nonprofits address food insecurity

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COVID-19 has forced food banks and community foundations to change how they address food insecurity.

BY ZAPORAH PRICE AND AWUOR ONGURU STAFF REPORTER & CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In the wake of COVID-19, New Haven nonprofits have sharpened their focus on the growing issue of food insecurity.

Amid the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic, New Haven residents have turned to food banks, soup kitchens and grocery voucher programs to get their food. This demand has added new pressure to the food supply lines of local food banks. At the same time, the pandemic has reduced the number of companies and organizations that supply food to the banks, pressing many to purchase from wholesale markets — a move that has brought an unprecedented amount of financial duress on the nonprofits.

This change has forced groups such as the Connecticut Food Bank and Community Fund for Greater New Haven to adapt their strategies for providing resources for New Haven residents and continuing their fight against food insecurity.

“There has been an increase in need with the onset of the pandemic,” CFB spokesperson Paul Shipman told the News.

“An increase of maybe 30 to 40 percent in traffic to our network of programs.”

Thirty percent of those coming into food backs since the start of the pandemic have been first-time visitors, Shipman said.

Feeding America, CFB’s nationwide network partner, has predicted that the amount of food insecurity in New Haven County will increase by nearly five percent in 2020.

The spike has astounded Shipman, who said he expects people of color to “suffer disproportionately.” DataHaven — a New Haven organization that has focused on polling COVID19 during the pandemic — cites that food insecurity ranged from nine percent among White adults to 22 percent and 27 percent, respectively, among Black and Latino adults.

With this increase in need, CFB has had to buy larger and larger amounts of food from wholesale retailers. In the past, the organization has relied on large donations from the food industry — including grocery chains, food distributors and local farmers. Since the start of the pandemic, Shipman said this supply dropped by 60 percent creating a gap in the food bank’s normal supply chain.

“We have needed to purchase food at a level we never had to before,” Shipman said. “We had purchased more food since April than we had purchased in the last six years together.”

Christina Ciociola, the senior vice president for grantmaking and strategy at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, told the News that the demand for goods to meet basic needs such as food, water, clothing and shelter have increased dramatically in recent months.

Ciociola said that the Community Foundation has had to reconsider the organizations it targets for grants as it adapts its strategies to tackle the surge in food insecurity during the pandemic. The change has pushed the foundation to work with groups smaller than they would otherwise.

The Theta Epsilon Omega

Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority is among the Foundation’s newest partner organizations in its fight against food insecurity.

The sorority received two grants to help with their outreach, one from the Community Foundation and another from the Yale Community for New Haven Fund — a fund set up by the University in response to the impact of the pandemic.

The sorority used these funds to purchase $50 food gift cards for elderly New Haven residents, a group that is especially vulnerable to food insecurity during a public health crisis when elderly residents are asked to remain indoors, chapter member Diane Turner said. With the program’s food cards, program beneficients can purchase food for delivery. It also allows the sorority to ensure that the funds are used to obtain food.

“We wanted to avoid making choices for people,” said Turner, who has led the sorority’s efforts in this project. “They may only spend $20 or $50, but still have money left over for the next time they need something.”

As the Elm City heads into the winter, local community leaders like Ciociola and Shipman told the News that issues related to food insecurity will remain, if not grow. To confront this, Shipman said he hopes community members will look for more ways to help their fellow residents in need.

CFB began as a soup kitchen in New Haven in 1982.

Contact ZAPORAH PRICE at zaporah.price@yale.edu and AWUOR ONGURU at awuor.onguru@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.” FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY RUSSIAN NOVELIST AND PHILOSOPHER

Famous alumnae virtually return to close out 50Y150 celebrations 50Y150 FROM PAGE 1 Mahmoud ’16. Discussions centered on topics such as social justice, threats to democracy and the climate crisis, spotlighting the voices of the many Yale female trailblazers who are shaping their fields and promoting important conversations on some of the world's greatest problems.

"If you were on campus before the pandemic, you saw the banners, buttons, signs and posters honoring the contributions of women of Yale throughout the year,” said Regina Bain ’98 DRA ’01 in her introduction to the webinar's first session. “And when the pandemic turned the world upside down, the celebrations moved online, culminating in [this] historic symposium.”

According to the event's organizers, the aim of the webinars was to galvanize younger generations into action and encourage them to follow in the footsteps of Yale women who are leaving their mark on the world.

In her welcome speech for the first session, Foster reminisced on her arrival at Yale and discussed grappling with impostor syndrome — "a hallmark of elite universities," she said — during her first year. She described not having felt "smart enough, deep enough, preppy enough, you name it enough, to belong there.”

She spoke about growing more comfortable during her second year and how that feeling eventually allowed her to perceive that Yale had its own share of problems — a realization that represented, to her, the point "where the real education begins, when you finally bring that strength of self to challenge these hallowed walls from the inside, and claim ownership of your education."

Foster also spoke of the first undergraduate women to walk through the gates of Old Campus in 1969, igniting a period of transformation.

"That very act was an earthquake,” Foster said. “It was the beginning of a new era, and it said, let it be known, this place will grow and change.”

In his opening address, alongside his wife Marta Moret SPH ’84, University President Peter Salovey remembered those who led co-education efforts over a century ago and "set the stage for our work today, to increase the representation of women in faculty positions and in leadership

MARISSA BLUM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

50WomenAtYale150 celebrates 150 years since women were admitted into Yale University and 50 years since the beginning of undergraduate co-education roles across all sectors." According to Salovey, those people were the ones to teach the community how to engage in more profound conversations about inclusion, diversity and belonging for all.

After the opening speeches, the first panel of the webinar series, "The Quest for a Just World," began, moderated by Sheryl Carter Negash ’82, manager of the Negash and Associates LLC consulting firm and 2018 awardee of the Yale Medal — the alumni association's highest award for service to the University. In this discussion, speakers — including psychologist Cheryl Grills ’80 and Chair and Commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights Carmelyn Malalis ’96 — discussed the need for systemic reforms across America to combat racial and social injustice.

"Government, for such a long time, historically, at every level ... has really feared attacking the root causes of racial discrimination," Malalis said.

Alluding to her experiences in government, Malalis commented on what it felt like for her to observe how much fear of disturbing the status quo exists in government. Echoing that sentiment, Grills pointed out that the time has come for a reckoning

with the United States' problematic past.

"For generations, America has taught its children, and reified in its movies and books, a glorious myth about the origins of this country and its greatness,” Grills said, “ignoring that it lied, it stole, it killed, it trafficked human bodies and souls, it enslaved, it colonized, it terrorized, it disenfranchised and it committed genocide against Black, Indigenous and other people of color.”

The second panel, "Art Now", focused on discussions of the legacy of Yale women in the arts and how they are dealing with difficulties posed by the pandemic for the field.

“Especially after this period, if it will ever be over, I think we are going to need more connection than ever,” Tanya Bannister MUS ’01. “I just can't wait to see what the world is going to be like as we come out of this and what we can do as women and as art leaders.”

Beginning conversations for this second panel centered on disability and equity at Yale and beyond with national disability rights advocate Janni Lehrer-Stein ’78. It finished with a discussion on "Making Change When Change is Hard" with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power

’92 and Wazhma Sadat ’14 LAW ’19, the first Afghan woman to graduate from Yale Law School.

When speaking to the challenges faced by the world at the moment, Power commented on how this moment in time has pushed people toward causes that deserve attention.

“It makes many of us feel very small, and I think that's the biggest challenge,” Power said.

“How do you get the gumption to believe that you can make a difference when problems feel as big as pandemics or as great recessions or as systemic racial injustice.”

On Friday, the first session was called "Saving Democracy" and was introduced by a conversation with former presidential candidates Clinton and Sen. Amy Klobuchar ’82. The discussion, moderated by Director of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale and Assistant Dean of Yale College Risë Nelson, explored what it is like to run for president of the United States as a woman.

The panel revolved around conversations that unpacked the American landscape of political polarization and explored why more women should be running for office.

Clinton spoke at length about her advice for those who are dis-

heartened by modern-day politics.

“You can't ever lose hope,” Clinton said. “You have to be willing to keep going, despite the setbacks, and you have to be willing to participate in our democracy to literally save it, and [to vote] for people who will agree with you to make the changes that are so long overdue and necessary.”

The Friday and Saturday sessions zoomed in on inequality in America, climate change and women using their voices in the media and journalism.

For the final Sunday session, a retrospective view of the evolution of women in Yale College over the past 50 years marked the end of the webcast series.

Yale alumnae who later went on to teach at the University drove the conversation, speaking to their experiences as undergraduate students, changes that have molded Yale into what it is today and the ground left to cover in including more women in the University's intellectual life.

Recordings of the webcast sessions are available on demand via the registration website.

Contact MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO at maria.pacheco@yale.edu .

Yale Club of New York City finds creative ways to engage members CLUB FROM PAGE 1 members. However, staff at the Club have put on a variety of virtual events and other programming

to help ensure that members feel connected.

“Although we are all eager to return to normalcy, we must comply with the health and safety

guidelines being set forth by our government and the CDC,” read an automated email from the guest rooms department at the Club.

“Please rest assured that we are all

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Although the Yale Club is temporarily closed in light of the coronavirus pandemic, it engages its members in virtual formats.

working hard to ensure that we are ready to welcome everyone back to their home away from home!”

The Yale Club of New York City, founded in 1897, is the largest physical college clubhouse in existence. The Club opened its doors at its current location in 1915.

The current building is 22 stories tall with a location close to Grand Central Station. There are over 11,000 current members, made up of either full-time faculty or graduates of Yale University. It contains numerous facilities, including multiple bars and restaurants, a library, three international squash courts, a swimming pool, banquet rooms and overnight accommodations.

When the clubhouse closed, staff immediately worked to transfer activities onto a virtual format.

For example, the Club hosts a regular Chef’s Cooking Corner with the Executive Chef at the Club Charles Kehrli. The cooking shows are hosted over Zoom, Instagram Live and YouTube as Kehrli shows members how to make the Club’s famous popovers, among other dishes.

After Kehrli produced an array of popover dishes, Michael Bullers, Director of Purchasing at the Club, remarked that “This is the absolute most I have despised not being able to be in the same room as one of these events, because I absolutely want to eat every single plate that’s in front of you right now.”

According to Julia Chen ’16, activities director of the Club, cooking lessons are just one component of a wide menu of programming options. Other virtual activities include “virtual fitness classes, mixology lessons, virtual happy hours, and most notably, an expanded program of live lectures,” she told the News in an email.

“With the benefit of the online platform, we were able to bring in even more speakers from around the world, and many Yale Professors, to speak to our membership

on history, politics, and COVID19,” Chen said. “We’ve gotten overwhelmingly great feedback on these in particular, and some members say that they’ve never felt more connected to the Club.”

Chen added that, for the class of 2020, the Club held a virtual graduation ceremony. In addition, the Club also hosted special virtual events for Yale's commemoration of 50 years of coeducation in Yale College.

Beyond virtual programming, members could also download activities such as a DIY Backgammon game, as well as access e-books and other digital resources.

Although the Club is not open to the public, there are still staff members in the building for maintenance, as well as to prepare for its phased reopening, beginning on Oct. 19.

According to Chen, the Club has set up an employee relief fund for employees that are unable to work remotely. In addition, Club administrators have kept in contact with employees through updates. The Club’s public spaces have also been reorganized to meet social distancing requirements, Chen said.

Although life at the Club will not return to normal for the foreseeable future, members will be able to access the Main Lounge, Library and Athletics Facility during the first phase of its reopening plan.

Chen ended her email to the News noting her excitement for the beginning of the reopening process, as well as a hint of optimism.

“Since 1897, The Yale Club has survived prior pandemics, depressions, world wars and other crises,” Chen said. “We'll survive this one too.”

The Yale Club of New York City is located at 50 Vanderbilt Ave. in New York City.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.” THOMAS CARLYLE BRITISH HISTORIAN

City unveils statue of William Lanson, Black engineer and activist LANSON FROM PAGE 1 — coordinated by the New Haven City Plan Department and Amistad Committee, a Connecticut based non-profit that educates the public about African American history — to celebrate oft-overlooked accomplishments by the city’s Black residents.

“This is not a project that we consider belonging to the Amistad Committee,” Alfred Marder, the 98-year old President and founder of the Amistad Committee, told the News.

“Everything we do, we believe, is the responsibility of the state and the people of our community to understand their history.”

The Amistad Committee has been envisioning such a project for

ten years. In 2010, the committee received a grant to expand the Connecticut Freedom Trail, which is a group of historic sites that offer a glimpse into the African-American experience in the state. Soon after, historian Katherine Harris published a pamphlet on the trail, which included a William Lanson site. The Amistad Committee used Harris’ research to present a brochure to former Mayor Toni Harp, and persuaded her that honoring his legacy should become a city project.

According to Connecticut History’s website, William Lanson was a formerly enslaved man who moved to New Haven with his family at the start of the 19th century and quickly became one of the city’s leading

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Oakland-based sculptor Dana King created the 7-foot bronze statue as part of an effort to celebrate oft-overlooked accomplishments by the city’s Black residents.

innovators. In 1810, he led a successful effort to expand the city’s Long Wharf by 1,350 feet — a move that made it possible for larger ships to dock in New Haven and stimulated the city’s economy.

Lanson and his employees quarried rocks from the Blue Mountain in East Haven and loaded them onto transport boats that he owned, a strenuous effort that Yale University President Timothy Dwight praised in an 1811 report, according to the website. In 1825, Lanson became New Haven’s Black governor and led the construction of the retaining wall for the harbor basin of Farmington Canal. “[The statue] is an historic event.

It comes in the midst of millions of people marching on the whole question of racism and to end the inequality which exists in our country,” said Marder, the President of the Amistad Committee. “So it’s not just a statue of an individual who was very active...but it’s really a signal that times are changing in our country.”

Connecticut History also credits Lanson for establishing a leading hostelry on Chapel Street and purchasing large amounts of land on New Haven’s New Township, which is now known as Wooster Square. In addition, Landon helped found the African United Ecclesiastical Society, the African Improvement Society,

and the Temple Street Church — now known as Dixwell United Church of Christ — which is the oldest formally recognized Black congregational church in the world.

Sculptor Dana King, who flew out from California to attend the statue dedication, says that she was not familiar with Lanson before she learned about the project, and is not surprised that most New Haven residents are not either. Jeanette Morrison, the Alder of Ward 22-D where the statue is located, also criticised her own limited education in New Haven about Black history.

“Where I’m from, I was taught three things...as far as Black history is concerned,” Morrison said at the statue dedication on Saturday. “That Martin Luther King was a good man, Malcolm X was a bad man, and Harriet Tubman freed the slaves. That was it.”

With no written or photographic records of Lanson’s appearance apart from his weight — 200 pounds — sculptor Dana King researched the faces of 19th century West African men for her artistic rendering. She told the News that in creating the sculpture, she envisioned “a beautiful man”, inside and outside. King used this idea to inform her depiction of Lanson as powerful and wealthy — holding a top hat in his right arm and clenching his fist in a gesture for black liberation.

Despite Lanson’s contributions to New Haven, his race made him subject to harassment, according to Connecticut History. Lanson was targeted by popular news sources and arrested numerous times by the police, and by the end of his life he had lost all of his wealth and property.

At the dedication ceremony on Saturday, Mayor Elicker pardoned Lanson, apologizing for the harm done to him by city government King emphasized how pleased she was that the Mayor acknowledged the struggles Lanson faced, and the importance of retelling stories in marginalized communities.

“Creating Black bodies in bronze is my public protest,” King told the News. “This is the only kind of work I create, because our bodies are always on display, and our bodies are harmed for being Black...so when I create Black bodies in bronze, you can’t hurt us anymore.”

She added that bronze can last for thousands of years, allowing Lanson’s story to be told by generations to come.

This statue is part of the city’s larger plans to construct a William Lanson Plaza, which will include a timeline of Lanson’s life and accomplishments as well as an outline of an historic canal boat.

Contact SIMISOLA FAGBEMI at simi.fagbemi@yale.edu .

Some colleges try to bring back sophomores SOPHOMORE FROM PAGE 1 Although Old Campus typically houses first-years, COVID-19 has rendered it the center of sophomore life. Some juniors also live on Old Campus. Current residents of Old Campus receive their COVID testing at Dwight Hall, pick-up food from their college dining hall and hang out with their peers in the courtyard.

Now, almost a month into the semester, that routine is subject to change — Benjamin Franklin, Pauli Murray, Silliman and Timothy Dwight colleges are offering their students the chance to move back behind college gates.

“Some [students] may be moving back into their residential colleges — but only the residential colleges that

typically include first year students in the colleges proper,” wrote Grace Hopper Head of College and Chair of the Council of Heads of Colleges Julia Adams in an email to the News.

“These are Franklin, Murray, TD, and Silliman — and this is entirely an issue of space.”

According to Adams, leaving Lanman-Wright is not mandatory. Rather, students can decide for themselves whether moving is right for them.

Camden Rider ’23 is a sophomore in Murray who petitioned to live on campus for mental health reasons and to mitigate the time difference between New Haven and his home on the West Coast. According to Rider, this new opportunity was given in hopes of strengthening sophomores’

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Old Campus typically houses first-years, but COVID-19 has rendered it the center of sophomore life — for the few sophomores who are living on campus.

ties with their colleges. This reason has not yet been confirmed by a head of college.

Rider said he appreciates his head of college’s concern for sophomores’ connection to the college and for their schedule. Since students can only retrieve food from their own college’s dining hall, the 1.2 mile walk from Lanman-Wright Hall to Pauli Murray and back has posed an issue for many students trying to eat between classes and other commitments. However, he plans on staying where he is.

“I have a good group of people around me and wasn’t ready to move across campus,” Rider said. “I emailed [my head of college] back saying all this and that I’m good where I am. I don’t feel detached from the Murray community — I have a community — I’m doing well.”

Not all sophomores share this feeling of connection to their residential college. Dan Huynh ’23 is living on campus because of his membership in Yale’s Naval ROTC program.

Though living and training together has enabled him to maintain rapport with the ROTC crowd, his other main point of connection — Trumbull, his residential college — has weakened.

Huynh cites the difficulty of eating in the dining halls, the lack of residential college programming and the fact that many of his friends are scattered across the globe as sources of strain.

Some of the on-campus sophomores are transfer students navigating their first semester in New

Haven in the midst of the pandemic.

These students in particular report feeling a disconnect between themselves and the broader Yale community.

Grace Campos ’23, who transferred to Yale from Pomona College in California to take advantage of Yale’s undergraduate theater program noted that, aside from some Zoom calls, there has not been an orientation program for transfer students. While the class of 2024 gets first-year counselors, mixers and extracurricular recruitment, transfer students have had to fend for themselves, Campos said.

According to Campos, transfer students have a transfer counselor, similar to the FroCos first-year students have. Despite this, many transfer students have not had much contact with their transfer counselors due to many of the counselors taking a leave of absence this year.

“Yale’s priority is always going to be its first-years — it felt like we were kind of left to the dust,” Campos said.

Sophomores at Yale — even prior to the pandemic — lose formal sources of mentorship like FroCos just as they are supposed to begin narrowing the focus of their college careers. Yale College students are expected to declare a major by the end of their sophomore year.

Rider expressed similar sentiments. According to Rider, the support first year students receive disappears once they reach their sophomore year of college.

A lack of external guidance and a pandemic has forced sophomores to look inwards and build a community within their class. According to Rider, the eclectic mix of on-campus sophomores ranges from ROTC members to internationals to transfer students who likely would not have met if it had not been for the pandemic.

“In the beginning, there was this presumption that everybody else knew each other and the transfers didn’t know anyone, but it became apparent that that wasn’t that case,” Campos said.

Campus, who was originally nervous about entering a system of pre-existing relationships, came to realize that most sophomores were forging new friendships in the face of the pandemic.

Huynh thinks the administration chose to house sophomores in Lanman-Wright Hall because the building’s courtyard is conducive to community building while also complying with the University’s guidelines for social distancing.

“The first 14 days when we couldn’t go to our residential colleges were just peak sophomore unity because we’d have to pick up our food on Old Campus and then we’d all eat together in the courtyard,” Huynh said. “That’s how I got to know most of the people who are new to me.”

Lanman-Wright Hall is located at 206 Elm St. Contact JORDAN FITZGERALD at jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu .

Yale Mental Health & Counseling unveils reforms MENTALHEALTH FROM PAGE 1 health support and services. Nine students and faculty members interviewed by the News cited a host of additional stressors and mental health concerns at this time. They spoke of social isolation, financial instability, visa issues, fears for family members’ health and increased workload in their online classes.

In an August report, Students Unite Now, a student organization dedicated to making Yale more equitable for students on financial aid, claimed Yale Mental Health & Counseling was not adequately addressing students’ needs. In interviews with the News, multiple students reported losing contact or knowing someone who lost contact with a therapist when students were sent home last March. YCC President Aliesa Bahri ’22 said at least two students reached out to her with this issue.

“I think the pandemic broadly would be considered what’s called a mass trauma” said Sarah Lowe, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences. “Mass traumas are potentially life-threatening events that affect not just individuals, but entire communities. Typically disasters and terrorism have been studied, but the pandemic would fit into this definition as well.”

During and in the aftermath of these events, people are at an increased risk for trauma-related

disorders like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as mental health conditions including depression and generalized anxiety, Lowe said.

According to Chief of Mental Health & Counseling Paul Hoffman, despite the decreased enrollment at Yale this semester, MHC is seeing the same number of students seeking treatment.

Newly published research suggests that mental health resources may now be more important than ever. A June report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that younger adults are experiencing disproportionately worse mental health during the pandemic.

During the pandemic, Yale has switched to virtual counseling, as the traditional psychiatrist’s couch model does not allow for social distancing. The department therefore saw an uptick in the number of patients receiving treatment over the summer, as students could continue meeting online with their therapists, Hoffman explained.

In normal times, many states prohibit counseling across state lines.

But at the pandemic’s start, 43 states, including Connecticut, relaxed these guidelines as part of their state-ofemergency orders, creating a “patchwork of regulations dictating who we could treat,” Hoffman told the News.

Students covered by Yale Heath but were at home in one of the seven remaining states were referred to a

mental health resource in their home state. The cost of this treatment was covered by Yale, Hoffman added.

“We maintained contact with almost all of our students who were sent home and if we were not able to continue seeing them, we tried to work out appropriate treatment plans in their home state,” Hoffman wrote in an email to the News. “Our appointment volume increased after students were sent home in March which is a good indicator of how many patients we continued to treat.”

Still, there is some debate as to whether virtual therapy offers the same benefits as in-person counseling.

For his part, Gigante said virtual sessions have been commensurate with his in-person meetings.

But Rebecca Rubright ’22, who has kept up conversations with her Yale counselor during the pandemic, said that the video meetings have proved less helpful than in-person ones.

“It’s harder to connect with someone over the phone or over Zoom, and a lot of what counseling is is connecting with someone who can help you work through what you’re trying to work through,” Rubright said.

The August report by SUN also criticized the YMHC for its long wait times to get an appointment. In the 2018 report by the YCC, 54 percent of surveyed students disagreed or strongly disagreed that the amount

of time they waited for an appointment was reasonable relative to the urgency of their condition.

According to the SUN report, there is a ratio of about 353 enrolled students per every Yale counselor.

Hoffman said this ratio is comparable to other institutions, but that Yale students seek out mental health treatment at higher rates than students at their peer institutions.

In an email to the News, Hoffman wrote that the department has made significant progress on reducing wait times. Last year, YMHC decreased the wait time to be assigned to a therapist by half, and further cut the wait this year, he added.

Still, SUN’s report calls on the University to reduce mental health appointment wait times to fewer than two weeks and to hire more

therapists of color and LGBTQ+ therapists.

“I think people wait until they absolutely need it or absolutely can’t continue the way that they’re continuing to reach out for help. People don’t ask for help until they really have reached the end of their rope,” Rubright said. “Then to be told, ‘we can’t see you for a month or two months’ can be pretty disheartening. Why does it take like four weeks to get an appointment at a center that’s supposedly for student health?”

The number of students seeking counseling has increased significantly over the past five years, Hoffman told the News.

Contact ROSE HOROWITCH at rose.horowitch@yale.edu .

YASMINE HALMANE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Yale has switched to virtual counseling during the pandemic, as the traditional psychiatrist’s couch model does not allow for social distancing.

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS Yale Symphony Orchestra moves digital

BY TANIA TSUNIK AND ROHAN KRISHNAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS This semester, transitioning the 100-person Yale Symphony Orchestra into a fully remote activity has been difficult at best.

As the YSO attempts to move its programming online, it must grapple with several obstacles. These include technical difficulties with sound lags, time zone differences and the inability to accurately capture music sounds on Zoom. William Boughton, director of the YSO, described the adaptation to an online environment as “impossible.”

“Nothing can replicate the experience of being together and making a beautiful piece as one in a single room altogether looking at a baton,” Kyle Shin ’24, a cello player, said.

The YSO continues to meet twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. Sessions take place over Zoom for an hour and a half, and they typically consist of listening to recordings, discussing them and experimenting with portions of pieces. The main adjustment to the YSO’s routine has been a division of the orchestra into sectionals to allow students to rehearse separately. Sectionals are groups of student musicians playing the same instru-

ment, led by principal players.

“It’s been okay so far because everyone has been willing to be pretty flexible,” Aditya Chander GRD ’25, concertmaster of the YSO, said. “But obviously, it’s nothing like the way that we’ve had to do it.”

Chander explained that when rehearsing, one person unmutes their microphone while the others continue to play along muted.

Even though this impedes the opportunity to exchange feedback, this seemed to be the only way to overcome technical lags over Zoom.

“It’s kind of as close to the real thing as we can get now,” Chander said.

Yet some students have attempted to sidestep these technical difficulties via innovative solutions over Zoom.

For instance, Shin said that sometimes a student shares a metronome with the rest of the group to keep everyone on the same beat.

The digital transition also poses the challenge of integrating first years into the YSO community and preserving social interactions among current members.

Boughton noted that a sense of family within the orchestra is “the most important thing.”

According to Dylan Fernandez de Lara ’23, co-principal of the second violin section, maintaining a sense of com-

munity can get “tricky” in the absence of in-person events.

To compensate for the lack of social interaction, the YSO has organized “families” — groups of five to six students — that meet online outside of practice sessions for more closeknit “bonding experiences.”

“We’re really investing time and trying to build a robust social life and incorporate our first years into the orchestra family,” Stella Vujic ’22, president of the YSO, said.

Nevertheless, the remote learning environment has introduced some novel benefits for the orchestra. The group has had unique opportunities to play with prestigious musicians including Miriam Hartman, principal violist of the Israel Philhar-

monic Orchestra. Such experiences would not have been possible in person.

Despite the challenges introduced by online rehearsals, most students expressed gratitude for the opportunity to engage with the orchestra this year.

“I’d rather like to get this interaction via Zoom than have the whole orchestra canceled because of the pandemic,” Fernandez de Lara said.

The YSO is currently preparing for online performances, with the annual Halloween show first on its agenda.

Contact TANIA TSUNIK at tania.tsunik@yale.edu and ROHAN KRISHNAN at rohan.krishnan@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF KARISSA VAN TASSEL

YCBA YCBA features features Hew Hew Locke Locke inin At At Home Home Series Series

COURTESY OF DANNY COZENS

BY SERENA PUANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER An elaborate cardboard ship once stood pressed against the pillars of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The installation challenged the boundaries of its space. It was covered in signs that read “EXPORT” and barcodes corresponding to museum objects with themes such as blackface and slavery. This was “Hemmed in Two,” a sculpture that was created by British artist Hew Locke and had once captured the attention of Martina Droth.

Twenty years later, Droth — now deputy director of research, exhibitions and publications and curator of sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art — invited Locke to a public conversation as part of the YCBA’s “at home: Artists in Conversation” series. Over an hour-long Zoom webinar last Friday, Droth and Locke discussed the key themes in Locke’s sculptures and photography.

“I wanted to show the trajectory of his work — the way in which his work has taken a theme but also changed over time,” Droth said.

Droth highlighted the relevance of Locke’s work to current conversations about race, authority and colonialism. She said his pieces “deconstruct” histories of state power.

Even though Locke is based in London, his works relate to contemporary American public discourse. This includes the recent controversy over removing his-

toric monuments and statues across the country. Locke began photographing monuments in 2005, and his works help viewers understand the structures in terms of the people they memorialize to the present day.

“I felt that these statues were invisible. Nobody was paying attention to them,” Locke explained during the webinar. “I wanted to make them more visible and bring them into the conversation about ideas of who these people are.”

Locke is a British artist, but as a person of color, he sometimes felt as though his work was not accepted as British. In fact, the “EXPORT” signs on “Hemmed in Two” are a statement about his work being viewed as “exported from somewhere else.”

Locke described the experience of British artists of color in the late ‘90s as “a position where we have to teach people where we were coming from.” He added that his goal is not to “batter people in the head” with his symbolism, but merely to express his sentiments to people.

“At the same time, I put something out, and if you don’t get it, you don’t get it,” Locke said. “I am not making a political or literal slogan — it’s artwork.”

In recent years, Locke has photographed monuments in both England and New York. Some of the monuments he photographed — including a statue of Edward Colston, a merchant with ties to the Atlantic slave trade — have been taken

down amid rising concerns about the subjects’ histories and legacies of racism.

The YCBA created the “at home” series to engage their audience remotely. Artists in the series are chosen with the museum’s collections and upcoming showcases in mind. In a time of limited access to the museum and a lack of in-person events, the YCBA hopes these events will generate interest in their collection and keep people engaged for future collaborations.

According to Beth Miller, deputy director for advancement and external affairs, each webinar has been attended by around 150 to 200 people across multiple time zones.

Unlike the YCBA’s previous livestreamed events, Zoom webinars allow remote attendees to ask questions. This makes the event “very participatory and connected.”

Miller said that the YCBA plans to expand the Zoom webinars to symposia and workshop events.

The “at home” series is just one part of the YCBA’s digital programming, which began in late July.

YCBA’s programming also includes a series of pre-recorded performances that premiere once a month. These performances range from musical concerts to literary readings.

YCBA’s public reopening will not impact the “at home” series.

The next event, featuring Rebecca Salter in conversation with Scott Wilcox, will be held on Oct. 9.

Attendees can pre-register for free in order to attend.

Contact SERENA PUANG at serena.puang@yale.edu .

SERENA PUANG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

New Haven’s Arte Inc celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month

ARTE-INC.COM

BY ANNIE RADILLO AND MARISSA BLUM STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Arte Inc., a New Haven based non-profit, is finding new and creative ways to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month amidst the pandemic.

Arte Inc.’s mission lies in connecting the Latinx youth with the arts. To do so, the organization brings educational events to the New Haven community every Hispanic Heritage Month.

“With everything that’s going on in the world, it’s just unbelievable that we have such division in our country,” David Greco, co-founder of Arte Inc said. “We are so similar in so many ways, and that’s the whole point of Arte.”

Greco and Daniel Diaz, who co-founded Arte Inc. in 2004, first noticed the gap between New Haven’s arts and Latinx communities while serving as board members in city organizations. When Greco and Diaz discovered that Lantinx students constituted nearly half of the student body in New Haven schools, they were disheartened by the disconnect between the two communities.

Since its founding, the organization has expanded beyond the arts to include an array of programs for Latinx youth.

These programs include afterschool opportunities, weekend events in both the arts and other fields, scholarship opportunities, college readiness classes, field trips and Socialization & Learning Adventures Through Education (SLATE), which teaches children life and social skills.

In past years, one of the organization’s main events for Hispanic Heritage Month has been

an art gallery. The gallery, covered in floor-to-ceiling paintings, showcases the works of Latinx youth. This year, public safety regulations for COVID19 made the gallery impossible.

Diaz said that Arte was determined to find socially-distant ways to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

Even though exhibits have been in-person in the past, the team moved to an online platform for its Heroes & Icons exhibit.

The exhibit uses photos and short biographies to showcase the lives and accomplishments of important Latinx figures.

“It’s a way to show the community that Latinos are a part of the quilt of this nation,” said Diaz. “We are a part of this quilt and we are people who produce for this nation and work for the betterment of our community.”

Upon interacting with scientists at the Yale School of Medicine and graduate students with Yale’s Exploring Science program, Greco realized the present importance of public health for the Latinx community. He noted that Arte should shift their focus to celebrating the “art of science.”

Richard Crouse is a graduate student in neuroscience. When

describing how Exploring Science’s mission fits into Arte Inc’s work and Hispanic Heritage Month, he said that too often, for youth of color, there is no accessible path to careers in science.

“We’re really trying to put [this disparity] at the forefront,” said Crouse, “and show them faces that look like them.”

Arte is partnering with Exploring Science to distribute 200 goodie-bags to families if they attend a Zoom experiment demonstration hosted by graduate students on Oct. 3. The bags, hand-packed by Greco, will be filled with snacks and tools for the experiments. Families can both watch a live demonstration and conduct their own experiments. Children can then discuss their observations with graduate students in individual breakout rooms.

Greco emphasized the need to support not just Latinx youth interested in the arts, but the entire community as a whole, particularly during this Hispanic Heritage Month.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.

Contact ANNIE RADILLO at annie.radillo@yale.edu and MARISSA BLUM at marissa.blum@yale.edu .

MEGAN GRAHAM/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

Art classes adapt to COVID-19

BY SAMHITHA JOSYULA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER An indefinite closure of art studios, labs and museums means that art professors and students have to rethink how they teach, create and share their work.

Even as most of Yale’s classes transition to remote instruction, the art department must contend with challenges unique to its discipline. This includes difficulties with providing live feedback in critiques as well as a lack of access to art materials and studio spaces. To plan for the semester, the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences formed a Studio, Performing Arts and Collections-based Courses (SPAC) Task Force to provide guidance for professors.

Alex Taranto ’23 said that in-person art classes are a “unique” experience at Yale. “The current situation is not the best for any major, but especially for art,” Taranto said.

The SPAC report encourages profes-

sors to redesign course syllabi and examine the “conditions of life” created by the pandemic. The report’s objectives span explorations of media and technology, the “materiality” of images and intersections between art and public health.

Christian Curiel ART ’05, who teaches Basic Drawing, typically teaches skills that use techniques of observation. This year, although he has not changed his syllabus drastically, Curiel wants to “adapt with the class” in real-time.

“My syllabus is very flexible, because art is a very flexible thing,” Curiel said.

Anoka Faruqee ’94, professor of Color Practice, introduced Adobe Illustrator to supplement a course that in previous years had been solely collage-based.

Taranto — who is enrolled in the class remotely — said the adjustment allows her to practice working with Illustrator, a “vital” skill in an artist’s toolbelt.

But altering syllabi cannot overcome all limitations of online instruction. The nature of feedback — an integral com-

SURBHI BHARADWAJ/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

ponent of most art classes at Yale — has evolved as professors and students navigate the digital barrier.

Anasthasia Shilov ’23, an Illustrations editor for the News, noted that simple computer settings such as screen brightness can alter how colors are perceived, which restricts students from experimenting with color choices. Furthermore, students viewing artwork online can only perceive the art in two dimensions. This precludes students from understanding three-dimensional spatial elements and textures in many works of art, Taranto said.

Taranto added that students seem more hesitant to speak on Zoom. This can be especially “crippling” in critiques, she said, where student feedback is essential.

She said that to accommodate for this, Faruqee schedules individual mentoring sessions throughout the week.

Art students must also grapple with the lack of a shared studio space. Shilov, who is enrolled from home, works in her kitchen which creates limitations to her work time. She is contemplating using kitchen walls to optimize her space. Alice Mao ‘24, who is enrolled on campus, works in her dorm room. Mao has also opted against using oils due to its toxic solvents.

Taranto said that since the art major is relatively small, the sense of community nurtured in spaces shared by students is especially important. “I think you lose the connections that you make [in those spaces],” Taranto added.

To combat this sense of isolation, some professors have opted to conduct class outside. Mao said that Painting Time — a course that explores the relationship between painting and time — has met twice at the Yale Farm. Curiel plans to schedule a socially-distant outdoors class for his Basic Drawing section. He will ask off-campus students to

venture out within their own neighborhoods and do the same.

In order for students to have equal access to equipment, the SPAC Report encourages that the art materials fee be redirected towards funding kits for students on- and off-campus.

Shilov said that she has yet to receive her kit. So far, she has purchased her own materials. Some professors however, have used the fee to cover guest speakers.

Art classes typically include visits to gallery collections on campus and trips to New York City. Curiel noted that encouraging students to look at other works of art is a vital part of teaching.

In place of in-person visits to the Yale University Art Gallery, Halsey Rodman — who teaches a class called Words and Pictures — has been using the YUAG’s high-resolution scans. These scans allow students to view art in a more detailed manner than an in-person visit would, Rodman said.

“Online viewing has become a bigger and bigger part of artwork,” Rodman said, while noting the distinct experiences of online and in-person viewing.

“It’s not like music, where people would confuse hearing a recording [and] being there in person.”

But even with these creative solutions, Rodman, Taranto, Curiel, Faruqee, Mao and Shilov agreed that the pandemic has taken a toll on creative energy.

“At the end of the day, that’s perhaps the hardest thing about being in quarantine … feeling like there is no reason to make anything without anyone to see it and engage with it,” Taranto said. “You don’t just want people to see it on Instagram or online. You want people to see it in person.”

The SPAC report was published on June 30, 2020.

Contact SAMHITHA JOSYULA at samhitha.josyula@yale.edu .

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

COVID-19 Coronavirus could invade the brain, two Yale studies suggest

YALE MEDICINE

Two Yale studies have shown the impact of COVID-19 on the brain.

BY MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO STAFF REPORTER Yale researchers found that the coronavirus can directly infect brain cells, potentially eliciting neurological symptoms — such as the loss of taste or smell — observed in 40 to 60 percent of COVID-19 patients.

The preprint of a study led by Professor of Immunology Akiko Iwasaki and Director of Yale Center for Genome Analysis Kaya Bilguvar was released on the server bioRxiv earlier this month. In the paper — first-authored by Eric Song MED ‘22 GRD ‘22 and Ce Zhang MED ‘22 GRD ‘22 — they report that several neurological symptoms of COVID-19 could be tied to coronavirus invasion of the central nervous system.

A second study, led by Assistant Professor Shelli Farhadian and also first-authored by Song, was released as a preprint just days after Iwasaki and Bilguvar’s paper. Their findings suggest that immune responses to the coronavirus in the central nervous system could occur independently from the rest of the body.

“The biggest thing about our study is that it has shown people the possibility of neuroinvasion,” Song, who was involved with both projects, said.

Before their findings, Song and Zhang explained, many dismissed the possibility of neuroinvasion because it had not been experimentally substantiated. Now that this idea is supported by evidence, Song says that specialists might

feel more encouraged to look into consequences that could stem from this phenomenon.

To explore whether SARSCoV-2 could invade brain cells, Iwasaki and Bilguvar’s group used mouse models, post-mortem brain tissue from COVID-19 patients and brain organoids — artificially-grown mini brains.

“I think that with a combination of the three methods, you can kind of piece together the whole picture as best as possible, especially for an organ like the brain, where you can’t take samples readily,” Song said.

According to Song, the three models complemented each other.

While organoids have the limitation of not accounting for all cell types found in the brain, the mouse model is more physiologically representative. But the limitation to the mouse model is that mice probably will not react to the virus in the same way that humans would. Post-mortem brain tissue of patients who died due to COVID-19 served as a way to verify whether observations from the other models made sense — but only provided insight into the brains of critically ill patients at the moment of death.

This three-pronged approach provides compelling evidence for the scientific community to potentially accept the theory of neuroinvasion. It also allowed the Iwasaki and Bilguvar group to see that the virus is able to use ACE2 receptors –– surface proteins that serve as the coronavirus’s molecular gateway into human cells –– to infect brain cells and co-opt their reproductive

machinery to multiply itself. They also observed that cerebral vasculature in mice rearranged itself in response to oxygen deprivation.

Song and Zhang said that one of their most surprising findings was that infection of specific neurons affected surrounding brain cells, resulting in their death.

“We found that once the virus infects the cell, the cell that’s infected actually doesn’t die, [but] rather the neighboring cells around it die,” Zhang said. “We hypothesize that this is because we found that the cell that’s infected with the virus undergoes sort of a hypermetabolic state in which it’s using nutrients that the other cells around it need to survive.”

According to Song, the group hypothesizes that, due to viral infection, neurons adapt and modify some metabolic pathways.

The neurons respond in ways similar to what you would see in strokes, where tissues die due to oxygen deprivation.

He also told the News that the group faced challenges acquiring post-mortem COVID-19 brain tissue. Song said that pathologists had refrained from extracting brains from corpses because bone saws are required to crack skulls open and can aerosolize the coronavirus, posing contamination hazards. Due to those challenges, Song added that collaboration with professionals in France, who “graciously shared” some samples, was pivotal.

At the Yale School of Medicine, collaboration was also fundamental in bringing this study into fru-

ition. The partnership between Song and Zhang, for example, budded from a text message and a casual conversation about their research interests.

“I think this is a lesson for people going into science ... to share your research with your peers, because you never know, one day [someone] can ask you for help on something that could lead to a big collaboration like this,” Zhang said.

The second study aimed to investigate whether the immune system could play a role in prompting neurological symptoms associated with coronavirus infection.

According to Farhadian, a neuroinfectious disease doctor, understanding localized immunological impacts of the virus on the nervous system is essential to guaranteeing that COVID-19 patients expressing neurological symptoms are treated for processes occurring within the brain.

“In this study, we were specifically asking whether the immune system itself may be driving some of the neurological symptoms that have been reported in patients with COVID-19,” Farhadian said.

Upon examining biological samples from patients and using a mouse model to simulate infection, the group observed that immunological responses in the central nervous system differed from those coursing through the rest of the body — suggesting that brain-specific treatments might be warranted for diseases like COVID-19.

After looking at immune responses against COVID-19 in the brain, Song explained, the

team found anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid of all the patients they sampled. According to Song, this made the group believe that “you [might be] having some sort of COVID-specific immune response in the central nervous system in a lot of patients.”

Farhadian told the News that it remains unknown whether coronavirus neuroinvasion can happen in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. She explained that in HIV, for example, even the cerebrospinal fluid of those who don’t manifest overt neurological symptoms still show evidence of effects of the virus within the brain. However, as of yet, the same has not been studied or proven when it comes to the coronavirus.

Overall, Farhadian said that the study is important because it emphasizes that people can’t hope to understand what is happening in the brain simply by studying reactions in the rest of the body.

According to Song, the “million-dollar” question that remains is how the virus makes its way towards the brain in the first place.

Each study approaches neuroinvasion through a different angle.

Together, they shed light on pressing scientific unknowns — heralding a new direction for research on COVID-19’s neurological effects.

More than 995,000 people across the globe have died due to COVID-19 at time of writing.

Contact MARIA FERNANDA PACHECO at maria.pacheco@yale.edu .

Three attendees of in-person lecture test positive for COVID-19

BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER Earlier this month, three attendees of a single in-person lecture tested positive for coronavirus.

According to the New Haven Register, a visiting professor from New York City lectured the class and subsequently tested positive.

Two students in the class also tested positive. In an email to the News, University spokesperson Karen Peart confirmed that there were three cases of COVID-19 stemming from a lecture.

“The University acted quickly upon learning of these cases, isolating the infected individuals and performing contact tracing,” Peart wrote. “To date, no additional positive cases have been identified among those students.”

Peart added that all other students in the classroom were asked to obtain testing, but she neither specified whether this testing was mandatory nor the time frame under which it occurred.

One of the students in the class, who tested positive and requested anonymity, told the News that the class was a graduate School of Management and Jackson Institute for Global Affairs course.

They confirmed that the visiting professor and two students, including themself, were infected.

“I don’t think that there should be any in-person classes,” the student told the News. “The vast majority of the in-person classes

at Yale that I know of only include grad students who as of right now aren’t required to be tested, which I think is a huge issue considering the fact that they are only required to get tested only if they’re living in Yale-owned student housing.”

According to the Yale Health guidelines, only graduate students in high-density dormitory housing, which includes Helen Hadley Hall and Harkness Hall, are required to obtain twice-weekly testing. Other graduate students are not required to participate in testing, but they can voluntarily participate once a week.

Dr. Madeline Wilson, chief quality officer at Yale Health and chair of Yale’s COVID-19 Testing and Tracing Committee, referred the News to Karen Peart when asked for comment. Maritza Bond, director of public health for the city of New Haven, also did not respond to a request for comment.

As of Oct. 1, Yale is currently at a “lower risk” for coronavirus transmission according to the Yale COVID-19 Statistics page. From Sept. 23 to Sept. 29, Yale tested 4,883 individuals for the virus and six people tested positive: two off-campus undergraduates, two students from the graduate and professional schools and two faculty and staff members.

Since Aug. 1, there have been 25 positive coronavirus results, including only unique positive cases and individuals.

“The university will continue to take rigorous precautions in order

to safeguard the health of the Yale community and beyond,” wrote Peart. “The university monitors its testing program daily to look for any signs of outbreaks or opportunities to adjust protocols.

We are extremely grateful for the sense of shared responsibility our community is demonstrating at this challenging time.”

In an email to the campus community on Sept. 4, Yale College Dean Marvin Chun lauded these efforts. He noted that Yale

College had “no positive test results, no undergraduates in isolation and none in quarantine,” for 12 days. He thanked students for their attentiveness toward the community compact.

According to the most recent data available, the University last conducted 2,122 tests on Sept. 26, returning three positive results.

For the student who tested positive, however, these encouraging numbers are not enough to feel safe in the in-person classroom.

“I’m a little freaked out to go back, in all honesty,” the student told the News. “[During the lecture] everyone was wearing masks, everyone was distancing 6 feet. The room was ventilated, all the windows were open. Technically it all looked okay, which makes it a little crazier.”

As of Oct.1, Connecticut has 57,742 cumulative confirmed coronavirus cases.

Contact MADISON HAHAMY at madison.hahamy@yale.edu .

AMAY TEWARI/PHOTO EDITOR

Three people tested positive with the coronavirus after an in-person lecture with a visiting professor.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 9

“You had to learn at a certain age what sarcasm is, you know?” PENNY MARSHALL AMERICAN ACTRESS

How YBC got 100% of eligible student-athletes registered to vote

ALEX TARANTO/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

Yale football linebacker Micah Awodiran ’22 came up with the idea in a Yale Bulldogs for Change meeting this fall, and the Athletic Department quickly got behind it.

BY RENA LIN AND GRACE ZHANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS The Bulldog Ballot Challenge has succeeded in getting 100 percent of eligible Yale student-athletes and coaches to register to vote.

The challenge was spearheaded

by Yale Bulldogs for Change (YBC), a group of 16 student-athletes across nine different teams working to improve the experiences of student-athletes of color. Yale football linebacker Micah Awodiran ’22 came up with the idea of the challenge in a YBC meeting this fall, and the rest of the Athletic Department quickly got behind it.

Yale’s athletic teams engaged in a friendly competition to get 100 percent voter registration as quickly as possible, and several teams achieved this goal almost immediately after the challenge

began. An additional benefit of the challenge was that it was able to teach those student-athletes less familiar with the registration process more about voting.

“I really think it opened up a lot of eyes, and also it opened up a lot of [football players’] eyes who really didn’t know about the absentee ballot process, things like how to register in Connecticut when they’re from Texas, things of that nature,” Yale football assistant head coach Derrick Lett said. “So it was a very, very informational type deal.”

Lett told the News that Yale is the only college in the country that has confirmed that its entire Athletics Department is registered to vote.

Swimmer Marcos Ortiz ’22, a member of the YBC committee and the Yale men’s swimming and diving team, explained that teams competed with one another to see

how fast they could achieve 100 percent.

“Each [Student-Athlete Advisory Committee] team representative had to collect evidence of voter registration from their team,” Ortiz said. “And once they had collected the full team of voters, then they can send that to YBC and SAAC, and that proves the entire team was registered.”

While the Bulldog Ballot Challenge originally only applied to Yale student-athletes, its impact has extended beyond Yale Athletics and into the greater Yale community. Lett said the challenge’s influence has reached some residential college deans, who have also encouraged their students to register to vote.

According to Lett, because the challenge was started by YBC, which is a group for student-athletes of color, there is an especially

great significance to the challenge’s success.

“With YBC, it is people of color, and [with] a lot of our ancestors and heritage, people fought hard to be allowed to vote,” Lett said. “So let’s make sure we use that right that people died for, people fought for. Use that right to vote … It was a very, very powerful moment.”The Social Justice & Inclusion Task Force includes administrators who work closely with the YBC: Lett, Senior Associate Athletic Director for Fan Engagement Nathalie Carter and Assistant Athletic Director for Administration Marissa Pearson. The task force is intended to be an outlet for student-athletes and staff, making sure they feel their voices are heard.

“I think [the Bulldog Ballot Challenge] was very successful,” Yale football offensive lineman Connor Halverson ’24 said. “I

think it’s a great idea to get young voters to the polls.”

The Athletic Department announced the creation of YBC in early September. YBC focuses on helping student-athletes of color feel safe in their environment at Yale, finding ways to organize events that help connect them to other student-athletes and giving back to New Haven’s communities of color.

The group’s vision statement explains that they not only strive to create opportunities for student-athletes of color, but also work to raise awareness of social issues in Yale’s general athletic community.The group is composed of three main committees: the Welcome and Support team, the Community Outreach committee and the Cultural House Connection group. The Welcome and Support Committee helps connect current YBC student-athletes with new YBC members in order to foster supportive and inclusive environments. The Community Outreach Committee and the Cultural House Connection Committee work together with local organizations to support and celebrate New Haven’s communities of color, according to the group’s website.

In particular, the group focuses on those who are just making the transition into a college setting and need to adjust to an unfamiliar environment.

“Especially with Yale being a predominantly white institute, our goal and our vision is for students of color to come on campus with a smooth transition, and make sure that they have a place where they feel safe and a place where they can be themselves,” Lett said.

Lett added that YBC strives to ensure that the student-athletes of color who are minorities on their teams feel comfortable and represented.

Yale has 739 eligible student-athletes and coaches registered to vote in the United States.

Contact RENA LIN at rena.lin@yale.edu and GRACE ZHANG at grace.y.zhang@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time.” MICHAEL JORDAN AMERICAN BASKETBALL PLAYER

Moving ergs outside, Yale rowers take Phase I in stride

BY AMELIA LOWER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER No one passing by Payne Whitney Gymnasium on Saturday morning could miss the sea of socially-distanced ergometers — “ergs” — and sounds of heavy breathing from the Yale lightweight men’s crew team.

The rowers’ exhilarating energy could be felt all the way from Broadway, causing pedestrians to curiously observe the unfamiliar scene.

Beginning early last week, the women’s, heavyweight men’s and lightweight men’s crew teams have assumed a new form of practice outside of Payne Whitney, using their ergs to condition during Phase I of Yale’s three-phase plan for resuming varsity training amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Yale crew teams are certainly taking advantage of each and every hour they have, holding practices outside six times a week at a distance of 12 feet apart.

“Right now, all we are focused on is doing a great job in Phase I,” said Andrew Card, the head coach of the lightweight men’s team. “We are taking it day by day and one week at a time.”

Each team has a designated time to attend practice each day, and every rower brings their own ergometer out from their team’s rowing tank in the basement to the front or the back of Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Athletes then return to clean each erg after practice. Although each rower

is distanced on the lawn, according to Card, “the team dynamic is awesome, and right now, the focus on today is more motivating.”

Similar to the men’s lightweight experience, women’s crew has been enjoying their practices outside together, which has allowed for them to not only train but grow as a cohesive unit.

“I will say our first week was very successful,” said women’s crew head coach Will Porter, who starts his 22nd year at Yale this fall.

“We have a very healthy team culture on women’s rowing. It’s very strong, very positive.”

Originally, crew training this fall was being held inside, where masks are required. After some creative thinking regarding the current situation, Porter and the other crew coaches decided to take advantage of the grassy space outside the gymnasium. Members of the three teams, who can now focus on their training, conditioning and team bonding, said they appreciated the change.

Porter said the idea was inspired by a situation he faced about 10 years ago. The team’s rowing tank was under construction that fall, and coaches had to find a new place to set up training. As a result, they turned to the alcove behind the pool in Payne Whitney, opening the doors to the outside.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult for Yale’s crew teams to train like they usually do — out on the water and in boats

of eight. But Porter, in addition to members of all three crew teams, has a positive outlook on this semester. He hopes that future phases of Yale’s plan will allow rowers to train in small groups on the water.

“All this independent training that our athletes are doing is going to make them stronger and more excited to be together when we get a chance to,” Porter said. “This gives our athletes a great chance to work in small boats — singles and pairs — which really can help them all technically.”

With relatively low COVID-19 transmission so far in the Yale community, the erging practices outside Payne Whitney have sparked excitement for potential progression into new phases later this semester.

Honza Vacek ’24, a first-year member of the heavyweight crew team, said he is looking forward to hopefully rowing in boats at some point this fall.

“Normally, we would be out on the water, right?” he said. “I really miss that … Anything with water, that’s gonna be great.”

When asked about his hopes for Phase II, Charlie Markert ’21 — one of the four returning seniors on the lightweight team — said he was also anticipating the scenery.

“It’s very different,” Markert said.

“It’s just much more fun to be out with your friends on the water and the set[ting], the scenery, as we run the Housatonic River. It’s in Derby, Connecticut, and it’s just beautiful.”

AMELIA LOWER/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Rowers from Yale’s heavyweight and lightweight men’s crew teams erg outside Payne Whitney on Tuesday afternoon.

Despite this fall semester being different from most, returning rowers are approaching the situation with positivity and remain hopeful about the possibility of a spring season.

Although the fate of the 2021 spring racing season remains undecided, Markert said that the obstacle of coming together as a team — with many athletes taking gap years or gap semesters — has not seemed to faze the Yale crew teams, specifically the lightweight men. Markert added that although two-thirds of their team, which usually has around 40 or 42 rowers, are taking fall-

term leaves of absence, the team’s first-years have brought energy and enthusiasm to team practices.

“I’ve just been very impressed at how upbeat they’ve been, [and] I’m really grateful for that too,” Markert said. “It’s been making it very easy on the seniors … I think there still is a hope of racing in some capacity in the spring, and that’s what’s really keeping people going right now.”

The Payne Whitney Gymnasium is located at 70 Tower Parkway.

Contact AMELIA LOWER at amelia.lower@yale.edu .

Bulldogs return to limited practice in Phase I of Ivy plan

BY ANGELA XIAO SENIOR EDITOR After months of uncertainty surrounding athletic competition and practice, some Elis returned to structured practices last week.

On Sept. 21, student-athletes returned to limited practices as Yale entered Phase I of a three-phased approach for resuming training. The plan, designed by the Ivy League and approved by all eight Ancient Eight presidents, allows individual schools to determine timing and implementation of each phase. In Phase I, student-athletes can engage in up to an

hour a day of strength or conditioning training compliant with social distancing measures.

“I’m so just thankful … [for] this opportunity,” Yale football head coach Tony Reno said. “When you look at it leaguewide, we were the first and one of the few that are not only on campus but [also] allowing our athletes to go back to doing what they love to do. You can’t compare it to a traditional fall season because we’re in such an untraditional time.

What you can compare it to is the opportunities that our peers have.”

In July, when the League announced its cancellation of all

YALE DAILY NEWS

Yale teams are participating in some in-person conditioning under Phase I of the Ivy League’s athletic reopening plan.

fall-semester competition, it also announced that it would implement a phased return to practice, with all teams starting in Phase 0. In Phase 0, no in-person physical activity was allowed, and virtual team meetings were permissible only once classes began for the fall semester, according to an Ivy League graphic posted on the Cornell Athletics website.

Under Phase I regulations, teams are allowed to practice for up to one hour each day. Each team has the discretion to allocate the time as it sees fit — the guidelines allow in-person weight training or conditioning sessions in which athletes are masked, socially distanced and in groups of 10 or fewer students at a time.

The Yale football team, which would usually be several games into a 10-week season by this time of year, practices five times a week, spending four of its five weekly hours on weight and strength training. Once a week, on Wednesdays, the team uses its hour for an outdoor conditioning session, Reno said.

Reno told the News that the start of Phase I was the first time in months that many members of the football team had access to a gym and proper equipment; those looking to keep in shape often had limited access and could only engage in workouts that required less or no equipment.

Julia Zhukovets ’23, a member of the women’s squash team, echoed that sentiment. Zhukovets

told the News that — having gone a summer without access to the gym — “the chance to lift now is beyond amazing.”

“I got used to [all safety protocols] after a few times,” Zhukovets said.

“Yale Athletics is doing a great job and trying their best to keep everyone safe but also to keep us in shape.”

In addition to the rules set by the League, Elis participating in the return to practice must check in with temperature screenings and complete the campuswide requirement of daily health checks.

Student-athletes enrolled in residence have the option to return to practice, but it is not mandatory.

Unenrolled students are unable to attend in-person practice sessions with their teams regardless of where they are physically located, but are allowed to continue to participate in virtual team meetings on Zoom.

“All student-athletes have the option to discontinue participation in practice activities at any time due to concerns related to COVID-19 with absolutely no repercussions,” Yale’s Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications Mike Gambardella said. “Only student-athletes enrolled in residence are able to take part in the phases due to NCAA regulations and the community compact.”

Per the Ivy League, fall sports are allowed a practice season no longer than nine consecutive weeks in the

fall term, with discretion on dates given to each school’s leadership.

No schools in the conference have progressed past Phase I yet, and restrictions will continue to loosen through the second and third phases. In Phase II, the daily allowance of in-person physical activity increases to two hours and expands to include sport-specific activity in addition to the strength and conditioning allowed in Phase I. In Phase III, in-person physical activity is permitted for up to 12 hours per week, and maximum group size, which is set at 10 in phases I and II, is dictated by campus policies. The University’s current regulations do not allow for more than 10 people per gathering.

On top of Ivy regulations, all activities must adhere to the requirements set by each member university.

While other Division I conferences in the country have allowed looser restrictions on practice and even allowed competition, Reno told the News that he believes the Ivy League’s approach is the correct one, protecting the health and safety of players.

“At the end of the day, people are gonna say, ‘We should have done it the way Yale has done it,’” Reno said. “Safety is paramount.”

Yale’s Ivy peers Harvard and Cornell both entered Phase I on Monday.

Contact ANGELA XIAO at angela.xiao@yale.edu .

MEGAN GRAHAM/PRODUCTION & DESIGN EDITOR

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 11

“Sarcasm doesn’t translate in print at all.”

MEGAN FOX

AMERICAN ACTRESS

First years lead Yale’s You Can Too chapter

BY BRYAN VENTURA CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Aug. 15, Janalie Cobb ’24 and Jennifer Okolo ’24 launched the Yale chapter of the You Can Too Program, a free mentorship initiative hosted by BIPOC college students. The program is dedicated to providing academic support, college preparation and education for BIPOC middle and high school students, focusing on issues pertinent to those groups.

Cobb, who serves as president of the chapter, has had experience with mentorship and tutoring programs since high school.

Okolo, vice president of the Yale chapter, has also had a longtime passion for social justice and community service. Together, through You Can Too at Yale, they plan to help create the next generation of BIPOC leaders.

“The idea for bringing You Can Too to Yale had little to do with the benefit the organization could bring to the Yale community, but purely what our students could give back to the outside world,” Cobb said.

The Yale chapter of You Can Too began looking for students to apply as mentors in August.

Throughout the mentorship application process, the Yale

chapter searched for BIPOC students who are deeply invested in the academic and personal development of their mentees and willing to commit to You Can Too’s motto of “paying it forward,” which revolves around helping create chains of change and kindness.

According to Okolo, the group’s executive team read and reviewed the applications. They picked mentors they believed could “serve their mentees in the most enriching way possible.”

Jade Villegas ’24, one of the accepted applicants, now serves as one of the two co-managers of Yale’s chapter of the mentorship program.

“As co-manager, my responsibilities are directly involved with the mentors themselves,” Villegas said. “We bridge the gap between the president and vice president and work to keep the branch running smoothly.”

Despite the pandemic, You Can Too has had an easy shift to its current virtual format, Cobb said.

According to Cobb, the group hosts meetings every two weeks for mentors and mentees in which the mentors share two PowerPoint presentations — one academic and one connected to a broader theme, such as “growth and learning” — and discuss their contents.

“To increase camaraderie between our mentors and mentees we have game nights or other Zoom-friendly activities,” Okolo wrote in an email to the News. “We also may include guest speakers to speak to our mentees about various topics.”

The purpose of the program’s curriculum, Okolo explained, is to encourage participating middle and high school students to create a relationship with their mentor, even if they are not meeting in person.

According to Okolo, exposure and education related to Black history and politics is meant to prepare these young students for success.

“Too often, the curriculum in high schools skips crucial facts of Black and brown history,” Okolo said. “You Can Too is an opportunity to fix the gap of knowledge Black, brown and Latinx students feel when it comes to education.”

The mentors of the Yale chapter of the initiative are working with students in eight different schools around the country, and the program means a great deal to the executive board and mentors, according to Cobb.

Cobb added that You Can Too has allowed her to expand what

COURTESY OF YALE YOU CAN TOO

By starting a chapter of You Can Too at Yale, Janalie Cobb ’24 and Jennifer Okolo ’24 plan to help create the next generation of BIPOC leaders.. she has been able to do and how many people “[she] can help on an individual level.”

Okolo shared a similar sentiment, that “You Can Too also creates a sense of community where our mentees can feel heard and supported. We have seen firsthand how difficult adjusting to

high school and college has been, and the ability to support another student through the process is extremely rewarding.”

The national You Can Too Program was founded in 2019.

Contact BRYAN VENTURA at bryan.ventura@yale.edu .

DataHaven survey reveals racial disparities in COVID-19 experience

ERIC WANG/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

DataHaven’s 2020 Wellbeing survey was released on Sept. 16 and shows the disporportionate impact of COVID-19 on Connecticut’s Black and Latino residents.

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Black and Latino residents of Connecticut have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recession, according to a new survey released on Sept.

16 by the New Haven-based nonprofit data analytics organization, DataHaven.

The 2020 DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey focused specifically on the well-being of Connecticut residents in the midst of the coronavirus pan-

demic. This year’s survey revealed that Connecticut’s Black and Latino residents have suffered from the highest rates of job loss, food insecurity and housing insecurity. Self-identifying members of these communities were also the most likely to report the loss of a family member or close friend due to the virus. The survey was conducted over the summer and received responses from over 1,000 state residents.

“This survey illustrates how the COVID-19 public health and economic crises have exacerbated these [racial, geographic and

income] disparities, reinforcing the urgent need to address the decades of systemic factors, structural racism and disinvestment in many of our communities that created these inequities,” Jay Williams, president of the Hartford Foundation — a grantmaking organization — said in a Sept. 16 statement.

DataHaven Executive Director Mark Abraham told the News that some of the survey’s findings came as a surprise. Despite the pandemic and resulting economic contraction, 68 percent of adults in the state reported feeling “mostly or completely happy,” according to the findings. Abraham said that the relatively high level of happiness can be attributed to people finding the “silver linings [of the pandemic] in terms of their personal experience of being home.” He added that Connecticut residents are “comparing themselves to their neighbours who have suffered more” during the pandemic. As a result, the average person who has remained employed and received stimulus checks has maintained a positive outlook, according to Abraham.

However, significant income disparities lie behind this statistic.

Only 54 percent of state residents who earn $30,000 or less described themselves “mostly and completely happy.” In comparison, 76 percent of those earning more than $100,000 responded similarly.

The survey also focused on the extent to which the pandemic’s effects on employment have

unevenly fallen on Black and Latino communities.

Since February 2020, 22 percent of Black respondents and 37 percent for Latino respondents reported that at least one member of their household had lost their job. Among white respondents, the rate was 18 percent.

“DataHaven’s survey findings corroborate conclusions drawn from other sources, confirming the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on minority communities,” wrote Dean of the Yale School of Public Health Sten Vermund in a Sept. 16 statement.

The survey also showed that Black and Latino communities in Connecticut experienced significantly higher levels of food insecurity. The rate among white adults was 9 percent, compared to 22 percent and 27 percent for Black and Latino respondents, respectively.

Racial disparities also appeared in rates of statewide housing insecurity — which DataHaven defines as not having “enough money to provide adequate shelter or housing” for an individual or their family. Seven percent of white respondents expressed concerns over housing insecurity. That rate went up to 10 percent for Black respondents and 21 percent for Latino respondents. Abraham told the News that the economic shockwaves from the pandemic have affected residents throughout the state over the past six to 12 months.

The survey also corroborated the high rates of infection and mortality within the state’s Black

and Latino communities. Among these respondents, 42 percent and 46 percent, respectively, reported having a close friend or family member test positive for COVID19. This number fell to 30 percent among white respondents. A death disparity also exists along racial lines, with 12 percent of white respondents reporting the loss of a close friend or family member, compared to 15 percent of Latino respondents and 20 percent of Black respondents.

The higher death rates among Blacks and Latinos corresponds with increased caution among those populations, with both groups reporting higher rates of mask-wearing and concern over exposure to the virus. Ninety-five percent of Blacks and 82 percent of Latinos reported mask-wearing, compared to 80 percent of whites. Sixty-one percent of Black respondents and 24 percent of white respondents reported being ‘very concerned’ about the virus.

Many of the survey’s respondents expressed a lack of trust in the federal government’s ability to look out for the best interests of their family. Only 43 percent of respondents reported a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust.

However, trust in local and state governments has remained much higher, both at 72 percent.

DataHaven was founded in 1992.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu .

Board of Education moves to open in-person clinic services

BY RAZEL SUANSING CONTRIBUTING REPORTER With New Haven public schools continuing to operate through remote education during the first 10 weeks of the fall semester, the Board of Education approved the opening of in-person health and dental clinics at local schools during the body’s Monday night meeting.

With seven votes in favor and one abstention, the board approved a motion to open 16 school-based clinics across New Haven. Sue Peters, New Haven Public Schools’ director of school health centers and dental clinics, sent a request to the board for clinics to see students in person during remote learning. The clinics’ services will operate on an appointment-only basis and will provide immunizations and preventative dental care. The board did not vote on an opening date for the clinics. At the meeting, Peters told the board about several reasons for the clinics to reopen, including their capacity to offer in-person care that telehealth cannot provide, annual student physical examinations and increased access to vaccinations among New Haven youth.

“Since the start of the pandemic, our health staff has been

continuously seeing student caseloads through telehealth. This has proven extremely beneficial to our students and families who experienced stress during the shutdown and weren’t able to seek preventive care from many community-based agencies,” Peters said. “Telehealth is good for some things but many of our families still have problems accessing telehealth or don’t have the capability to access it.”

School health officials have expressed concern that the number of students using the district’s regularly offered health services has decreased during the pandemic. They have suggested that in-person clinics could help renew this access.

According to Peters, the limited care options available through telehealth merit the clinic openings. Without the clinics, the district finds it more difficult to provide immunizations and physical exams required for student enrollment. Peters said these requirements are necessary to reduce the risk to the school community from disease outbreaks.

While the district would usually begin to provide students with physical health examinations in September, it hopes to begin as soon as it can. Peters told

the board that the district is confident that increasing access to physical health examinations better guarantees that returning students will be in good health if they return to in-person classes in the coming months.

Peters suggests that local neglect of immunization procedure — particularly with respect to the flu shot — could exacerbate the existing public health crisis.

According to a New Haven Health Department report, the sharp decline in local outpatient visits to pediatricians and the decrease in administered immunization doses suggest that New Haven youth are more vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. Peters said that the district hopes its clinics will reduce the risk of respiratory illnesses during the upcoming influenza season.

The Center for Disease Control and the Health Department have recommended that Americans get the flu shot before winter, as its peak usually occurs in this season, coinciding with the pandemic.

Community health partners — including the Yale New Haven Hospital, Fair Haven Community Health Center and Cornell ScottHill Health Center — have worked with the board since early August to plan the clinic reopenings. To

RAZEL SUANSING/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The Board of Education meets over Zoom to discuss the reopening of schoolbased clinics. ensure the safety of these clinics during the pandemic, Peters said the district worked to ensure the implementation of social distancing protocols. This has included rearranging waiting rooms to have lower capacity, providing personal protective equipment for all health providers and creating sparsely scheduled appointment times.

BOE member Darnell Goldson told his colleagues he approved of the safety protocols.

“I’m impressed that they are only letting in one client at a time, and there are 15-minute breaks

between each student as they will be cleaning and disinfecting,” Goldson said.

BOE Member Dr. Tamiko Jackson-McArthur supported opening these clinics, noting their impact on her constituency.

“I know my people use these clinics, and they are lifelines,” Jackson-McArthur said.

The Board of Education voted to suspend in-person class for the first 10 weeks of school on Aug. 18, 2020.

Contact RAZEL SUANSING at razel.suansing@yale.edu .

NBA Lakers 116 Heats 98

NWSL Thorns 4 Reign 1

SPORTS

MLB Reds 0 Braves 5

MLB White Sox 4 Athletics 6

LA LIGA Barcelona 3 Celta Vigo 0

FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

HANDSOME “WALTER’ DAN XVIII RUN WITH HANDSOME The first-ever Handsome Dan virtual race has begun. Submit a screenshot of the time and distance (5K or 10K) of your run to yaleathletics@yale.edu during the month of October. The first 250 submissions will receive a Handsome Dan medallion.

ALEX LYON ’17 LYON RE-SIGNS WITH FLYERS The 2017 Yale men’s hockey graduate and goalie signed a one-year contract extension with the Philadelphia Flyers worth an annual average value of $700,000. Lyons appeared in three games with the Flyers in the 2019-20 season with a .890 save percentage.

“At the end of the day, people are gonna say, ‘we should have done it the way Yale has done it.’ Safety is paramount.”

TONY RENO, JOEL E. SMILOW ’54 HEAD COACH OF YALE FOOTBALL

Yale Golf Course reopens under new GM Palacios GOLF

MUSCOSPORTSPHOTOS.COM

The Yale Golf Course reopened to in-state golfers on Monday under new general manager Peter Palacios.

BY EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA STAFF REPORTER After almost nine months of closure, the Yale Golf Course reopened on Monday under newly appointed General Manager Peter Palacios Jr. The Yale Golf Course closed for the season last November and remained out of service for an unusual amount of time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the closure, Yale lost golf course superintendent Scott Ramsay, who had been at Yale for 17 years, along with General Manager Peter Pulaski, who had served at the post for two decades. To fill Pulaski’s vacancy, the University hired Palacios in late August as the course’s new GM. The position of superintendent remains unfilled, and Palacios — who came from the Wisconsin Golf and Country Club in Eau Claire, WI — said that finding a replacement for Ramsay was going to be one of his priorities when the offseason begins this winter.

“There was no intent to move out of Wisconsin,” Palacios said. “That [move to Wisconsin] was somewhat going to be our [family’s] final move, but with this opportunity

coming up here at Yale, there was no question I had to put my name in the hat for this one. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The appointment of Palacios represents a renewed commitment

by Yale’s Athletic Department to make the golf course a more central part of the department’s goals and objectives for the future. The Yale Golf Course is one of the most unique facilities that Yale has to offer — not only for its rich history, beginning when the course opened for play in 1926, but also in its semi-autonomous state of governance. But until now, the relationship between the department and the course has been distant, Palacios said, with the University allowing the course to function mostly independently.

Palacios is originally from Laredo, TX and comes from a golf family.

Palacios’ father played in the Mexican tour and owned a golf shop in the Rio Grande Valley for more than 30 years, and Palacios’ uncle worked as the resident golf pro for a country club in Saltillo, Mexico. After playing golf and earning his bachelor’s degree at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, he worked as the golf pro in the Laredo Country Club before mov-

ing into his first general manager job at the Raveneaux Country Club in Houston. The industry has taken Palacios all over the country — from Texas to Florida, then Wyoming and Wisconsin before finally coming to Connecticut.

But it was in his native Laredo that Palacios really learned the business side of golf. These lessons included learning more about the agronomy, the science behind landscaping, that comes with maintaining a golf course and how to manage a country club course with more amenities.

Palacios is keenly aware of the importance of his position as general manager. He knows the depth of Yale’s golf history, and he feels his time as a college golfer will help him balance the unique interests and challenges that come with managing a university course as opposed to a country club. One of his first changes as general manager is to make the golf course free to play for Yale students weekdays after 12 p.m.

“The goal is to number one, restore the golf course to its original design and bring the golf course playability conditions back up to championship-caliber level in order to host NCAA tournaments and other big

events,” Palacios said. “Even though we are three miles apart [from campus], apparently there is a big disconnect between the University and the golf course, and one of the main goals is to try and reconnect that. The primary goal is number one to get the students involved and get the students educated into what value the golf course can bring to them.”

Most students are unaware of the rich history and the high esteem the Yale Golf Course receives in golf circles. Golf Club Atlas, a website that focuses primarily on golf course architecture and grades courses based on how much they uphold the values of the game, ranked Yale as the 127th best golf course in the world and 58th in the United States in its most recent set of rankings released last weekend. This high ranking was achieved despite the website commenting that the course’s place on the list could be 100 spots higher were it not for its “iffy presentation.”

Currently, the ninth hole, known as the course’s signature hole and named “Biarritz,” is closed due to construction on the dam. Other aspects of the course are also still closed — the course’s reopening guidelines explain that due to COVID-19 policies, all of the indoor facilities from the clubhouse to the driving range will likely remain closed for the short season that remains. Additionally, only residents of the state of Connecticut will be able to play until further notice.

This past summer, amid the vacancies of both the general manager and superintendent, the course’s conditions started to deteriorate. Course members, including two faculty members, raised concerns about the poor state of the course, prompting larger conversations about whether Yale’s nationally ranked course would “ever return to its former glory,” as Golf. com wrote in a headline.

“It was really after my time,” former superintendent Scott Ramsay said about the course’s subpar conditions this summer. “The entire University shut down, every single staff person went home and

the course suffered from that. Golf in Connecticut was considered an approved activity and the maintenance of golf courses was an approved activity, but the way the University is structured and the way that they wanted to protect employees, they drew a line in the sand and said there wouldn’t be any staff at the golf course maintaining it.”

Ramsay accepted a job at Farmington Country Club in early 2020 and concluded his 17 years at Yale in March. When asked about the departure of former general manager Pulaski, who left in June, a spokesperson for Yale Athletics said the department could not comment on personnel matters.

Now, the course has Palacios in charge, and in addition to hiring a superintendent, he said improving the course’s condition when it opens for the 2021 season will be a priority.

Ramsay said that there are normally around eight to 10 union employees working on the course yearround, but this number fluctuates, especially in the summer when the course hires dining hall employees and student-athletes to help with the course’s maintenance.

After starting at Yale in the fall of 2003, Ramsay’s work as the superintendent of the course included an overhaul of the drainage and irrigation systems. The average golfer might not notice this kind of upgrade, but William Kelly, an expert of Yale’s golf history, professor of anthropology and Yale’s Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, said it is incredibly important when one considers the large carbon footprint that golf courses can have.

“I play golf, I like golf, [but] I have a lot of doubts about the environmental sustainability of a sport like that,” Kelly said. “Scott Ramsay has been one of the people, as superintendents across the country, that has tried to introduce sustainable practices to the Yale course.”

Palacios was four years old when he started playing golf.

Contact EUGENIO GARZA GARCÍA at eugenio.garzagarcia@yale.edu .

Intramurals adapt to pandemic

BY JORDAN FITZGERALD CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Tyng Cup is up for grabs — just make sure you wash your hands.

INTRAMURALS Intramurals have adapted to Yale’s COVID-19 safety precautions. Students must wear masks, socially distance and sanitize their hands and equipment. Instead of field sports like soccer and football that involve physical contact and transportation, students can now represent their residential colleges in two-on-two games of CupCheck, HORSE, cornhole, pickleball, Spikeball and table tennis.

KanJam and bocce will be introduced later this season.

“Though they may not break as much of a sweat as they would at volleyball or soccer, participants will still be able to bond with their colleges and have some friendly competition,” head intramural secretary Rachel Cohen ’21 said.

According to Tom Migdalski, Yale’s director of club sports, intramurals and outdoor education, the University waited until the end of the summer to decide whether intramurals would be allowed to proceed, in order to act on the most up-to-date public health information.

The intramural office, however, did not wait for this announcement to begin planning. Migdalski said the planning process began in late May and that his office took inspiration from how other universities, both within the Ivy League

and nationwide, were addressing the pandemic. The residential college secretaries were also proactive, drafting coronavirus-compliant plans as soon as Yale College Dean Marvin Chun announced that students would be able to return to campus on July 1.

“The main challenge was making sure everything could be done safely,” Cohen told the News.

New sports and social distancing are not the only changes. Residential colleges can only bring a limited number of players and substitutes to games, and spectators are prohibited. Yale Athletics employees and trained student referees are present at intramural games to enforce these rules.

Dan Huynh ’23 said that “it’s super nice” to have intramurals in the absence of other residential college programming such as teas and study breaks. Nevertheless, he expressed his concern over the absence of many upperclassmen who had led intramural involvement in previous years.

Trumbull College’s head intramural secretary Adia Klein ’21 echoed this sentiment. She told the News that complying with public health guidelines was the intramural program’s biggest hurdle.

“Some other challenges have been recruiting people, especially upperclassmen, since many students are not in residence,” Klein said. She added that first-year engagement is similar to previous years, likely due to the fact that the class of 2024 represents a large percentage of on-campus students.

STAT OF THE WEEK

739

Though they are unable to make it to their residential college courtyards, Yalies who are enrolled remotely or taking academic leaves can still get involved with intramurals. In continuation of online programming from last semester, the intramural program and the E-Sports program are hosting digital game tournaments. Each month, students can register to compete in rounds of Mario Kart, FIFA or digital chess on traditional gaming consoles or their mobile phones. However, E-Sport vic-

tories will not count toward Tyng Cup standings.

“IMs are important every year, but are perhaps more important this year than any other,” Migdalski said.

With COVID-19 scouring students across the globe, impeding community formation and forcing students to remain sequestered in their bedrooms, Migdalski emphasized the importance of camaraderie, community and friendly competition inherent to the Intramural program.

Klein urged students to sign up for intramurals, stating that “they allow you to meet other people of all class years and provide an outlet for athletic competition for people of all skill levels.”

Timothy Dwight College currently leads the race for the Tyng Cup with 66 points. Grace Hopper follows closely with 54 points.

Jordan Fitzgerald | jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu Contact JORDAN FITZGERALD at jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF NOAH CIRISOLI

The Yale Undergraduate Intramural program introduced new activities in compliance with public health protocols.

THE NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE STUDENT-ATHLETES AND COACHES WHO ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE. For more information, see page 9.

// DORA GUO

WEEKEND FRIDAY, OCTOBER 02, 2020

Zero Waste?

Like… None? // BY GEMMA YOO

Climate change is one of the many looming dooms that in the year 2020 feels increasingly urgent and inescapable. Thinking back, I don’t remember when I first became aware that the planet I would someday inherit was melting and dying and full of propellant-torn holes. But it was early.

Third grade was around when my preoccupation with saving the planet kicked into gear. Spurred by the books and websites we had read encouraging children to be climate heroes, my best friend and I started a “save the planet” club. We were the only members, and the only club activity was the two of us writing a one-page newsletter about an endangered species and mailing it to our immediate family with a plea for money.

We did this maybe three times before losing interest and forgot to actually send the donations to the World Wildlife Fund and their charismatic megafauna panda logo.

So, yes, we did in fact save the planet, and you’re welcome.

I have all kinds of memories of these clumsy attempts to put inspiration into action. There was no shortage of environmental activism aimed at kids in the 2000s — all of my favorite TV shows had an episode on the virtues of recycling and cleaning up litter. I read books with titles like “101 Ways You Can Help Save the Planet Before You’re 12!” that taught me about compost and compact fluorescent bulbs. I wasted hours on a PBS Kids website called EekoWorld where a monkey-shark-snakebird chimera named Cheeko quizzed you on eco-friendly choices. I devotedly learned all of these lessons, but often the tips and tricks didn’t work as well at home as on the page.

There’s a four-star Amazon review for the “101 Ways” book that probably sums up my parents’ feelings on the whole thing: “gave the kids something to think about. some of it was dumb.”

Of all these sources of ecological wisdom, perhaps the most fascinatingly unattainable was the Zero Waste Home blog. Run by a woman named Bea Johnson, the blog followed her journey guiding her family to produce “Zero Waste,” or as little waste as possible, in their day-to-day lives. The yearly amount of non-recyclable, non-compostable trash they produced as a family of four fit into a mason jar. And not a normal size jar, either: a pint-size one. Like. A pint glass worth of trash and that’s it. What!!!

How??? She was a god. The blog was like a

holy text, describing the best possible way a person could live. I loved it.

Now, the blog link saved deep in my computer bookmarks is out of date — there’s a new, shinier website, promoting talks, a book, an Instagram. The content, though, is how I remembered. There are still descriptions of ways to avoid waste — buying food in bulk in jars, using baking soda as toothpaste, avoiding plastic at all costs. As a kid, I remember finding most of the tips delightful — Canning vegetables! So cottagecore!

— but there were also parts I resisted even then. The biggest part of accumulating zero waste is refusing what will eventually become waste, so Bea’s children’s laminated art projects had to stay at school. That hit close to third-grade home. Maybe there were some sacrifices that were too big for the planet to ask for.

So I’ve never come close to going zero waste. I don’t even know if I live any more sustainably than your average person. I absorbed all that content and for what, lingering guilt for leaving food on my plate?

Nagging people to turn off the lights? Being vigilant about turning off the water when I brush my teeth? These questions about the environment are still on my mind, for sure, but shouldn’t I have actually saved something by now? Where did I go wrong? Where did our world go wrong?

Looking at the blog now, it’s clear how much time and energy the zero-waste lifestyle must take. Clearly, Bea’s methods are not realistic for everyone. We can’t all argue with the man at the Whole Foods meat counter about whether he can give you your meat in a glass jar from home. Most daunting to me, though, are the descriptions Bea gives of navigating other people. Waste is everywhere, and so avoiding it means fending off waste from everyone in her life, from the companies sending her junk mail to her mother giving her kids LEGOs for Christmas. As someone stressed out even by phone calls, that amount of confrontation feels well beyond what I could ever bring myself to do. And at the end of the day, the Zero Waste Home is also a blog with all the implications of a blog — the aesthetic, the self-help tips, the ways in which it assures you that going Zero Waste will make you so much happier than you were before. Maybe it was all an unrealistic fantasy from the beginning, something I believed because I was eight and so shouldn’t feel bad about

not achieving.

This cycle of exhaustion and doubt is where I think I ended up — after my initial excitement had faded, after my efforts had died with whimpers and especially after I learned more about the scope of the problem. Recycling isn’t as helpful as you want it to be. The actions of very few wealthy people and companies will have a much greater immediate impact on the world than any of your actions can. The people who will face the greatest impacts of climate change are the most vulnerable and, generally, the people who have done the least to cause it. We don’t have much time.

In the face of the enormity of the issue, it’s important that the steps we take to address it are solid and strong, but sweeping policies can come with big drawbacks and small actions may not even be worth our time. The fact that climate change is so overwhelming factors into it, too, because the more uncertain and terrible everything seems, the harder it is to make yourself do a bunch of inconvenient stuff that isn’t going to save the planet anyway. The more stressful my life is, the more I need unsustainable things like fast food hamburgers at midnight. It’s like the rush from procrastination: not really good for you, but the relief of something easy is so good, and the idea of thinking about a problem for another single second is so godawful.

Maybe this way of thinking is the natural result of trying to solve a complex issue with an oversimplified understanding of the problem — of course, I wasn’t a climate hero in third grade. Actually, I question the logic of focusing so much energy on educating kids about climate change rather than adults. It feels almost like giving up before even getting started: If you don’t think adults, with all their nuanced critical thinking, can understand the full scope of the problem and still feel like they can do something about it, the answer is not to sugarcoat it, feed it to the next generation and hope for the best. I’ve moved from thinking the problem was easy and solvable to realizing it is incredibly complex and possibly hopeless.

But not only is this conclusion unsatisfying, it’s totally unhelpful and in fact actively bad — draining my energy, preempting any kind of progress. Maybe the problem is that it’s not a conclusion at all. If my initial easy optimism was a child’s fantasy, maybe my current terrified nihilism is just a teenage

emo phase, and there’s a better, harder place to go from here. Like how I’ve felt about Dora the Explorer over the years: I was obsessed, then I hated it! It was not cool!!!

And now I’ve moved on. Dora didn’t prepare me to live in a complex human society, but, y’know, I’m figuring it out. Did my thirdgrade self learn how to save the world? No. But now I’m an adult, I know how hard this is and I guess I still want to try.

As far as finding effective ways to promote sustainability, there’s a lot that I think the Zero Waste Home does right: the emphasis on refusing/reducing waste rather than recycling, the outreach to a larger community and larger systems of power and maybe most of all, the idea that you can look at your whole life through the lens of what is best for the planet. The very first entry on the blog, from Dec. 24, 2009, helps melt my cynicism. Titled “Here I Come,” the post begins, “all right, here I am … I created this blog site a couple months ago and could not get it started … just did not know where to get it started … My zero waste seems so small and meaningless in the scheme of things that I did not think it was worth elaborating about, I did not think that it could make a difference.” Well, her book has been translated into 25 languages now, and I, at least, still remember this blog 11 years later.

Whatever the Zero Waste Home’s limits are, clearly Bea’s efforts have made some difference.

Blogs like Zero Waste Home can only go so far: There is no sustainability bible.

No one knows the challenges of your life and the ways in which you can realistically live more sustainably better than you. At the same time, there is no neutral option: Everything you do has some impact on the environment. It can be a small help or hurt, or a big one. But our actions are tied, ultimately, to consequences. And finally, there is no alone: It’s an ecosystem. We’re all connected. Your actions aren’t happening in a vacuum from your neighbor’s, and none of us are going to do much of anything by ourselves.

In that light, I’m embracing a new idea about the way I think about and practice sustainability: Gave the kids something to think about. Some of it was dumb. But not all of it, right? Some of it really mattered.

Contact GEMMA YOO at gemma.yoo@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND CHANGE

Good Trouble

// CLEOPATRA MAVHUNGA

// BY TONY HAO

// CLEOPATRA MAVHUNGA

Editor’s note: Good Trouble is a biweekly series highlighting Yale student activists and their work fighting for racial justice in their home communities. With the remarkable convergence of the pandemic and the historic movements that began in wake of George Floyd’s death, many students found themselves working to transform towns and cities that they thought they had left behind.

Through these profiles, we hope to celebrate their resolve in the face of racial violence and injustice while exploring how we are shaped by the places that raise us and what it means to shape those places in turn.

Rican, Dominican … this list goes on and on. But perhaps more significant is Framingham’s Brazilian influence. According to Cleopatra, it has one of the most concentrated Brazilian populations anywhere in the world outside of Brazil. Some building signs are written in both English and Portuguese, and Framingham High School offers an extensive English Second Language curriculum.

But the presence of diversity does not imply people’s respect for diversity. In fact, if diversity is not respected, it will become marginalization and segregation.

A clear September afternoon in Framingham, Massachusetts. Under the gleaming sunlight, the red oak leaves shone like fire. In Farm Pond State Park, young Cleopatra and her white, Black and Latino friends ran through the golden woods. Stepping on the fallen acorns, crunching the drying leaves, they lay down on the grassland by the land bridge and watched the sunset. As the last wisp of sunlight stroked their hair, they feasted on the pastries from the nearby Pao Brasil Bakery and talked. About life, love, friends and dreams. Stars glimmered in the deep azure sky. Cleopatra wished this moment would have lasted forever.

In Framingham High’s main building, most ESL classes were concentrated in the single B Hallway — one of the structure’s 10 wings — together with the vice principals’ offices and notably, eight student resource officers, commonly referred as SROs. They are cops.

They are stationed on campus in case of emergencies. However, coincidentally, all of them seem to always stay in the B Hallway. Some students speculate the reason being that B Hallway connects to the cafeteria and is usually crowded. But so is the F Hallway, which also includes all the English classrooms, the school’s main entrance, plus a day care — don’t the younger kids need stronger, more immediate protection?

And probably a more fundamental question: Why aren’t the SROs evenly distributed across the entire campus?

Students make mistakes, and the VPs are the ones that hand down punishments, but in the B Hallway, the SROs — cops — punish the students breaking school rules before the VPs do.

And when VPs do hand out punishments, they aren’t necessarily fair. According to a poll conducted by Cleopatra of the Framingham High students who have ever felt that their VPs punished them unnecessarily harshly, 53% of them were non-white.

Other data shows that the non-white students —43% of Framingham’s student body — receive 60% of the punishments.

Data can be manipulated and misleading, and doesn’t necessarily capture the lived experiences of the students who walk the halls of Framingham High. So, here are a few personal stories, relayed to me by Cleopatra: She was once given a multiple-day suspension for hiding a classmate’s binder as part of a prank.

A non-white friend missed a day of class during quarantine because of sickness. This friend did not get a call from their teacher or guidance counselor to check if they were okay. Instead, an SRO paid them a visit to investigate why they were missing classes.

A white math teacher once told her class

Cleopatra Mavhunga (TD ’22+1) was born to a Zimbabwean immigrant family and grew up in Michigan as her father completed his PhD. After her father secured a teaching job at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her family went house hunting and eventually settled in Framingham, a 30-minute ride away from Boston, when she was eight. Ten more years and the births of two younger brothers later, she headed down to New Haven, declared theater and English majors and has been doing racial justice work in her hometown’s school system. This year, she is taking a leave of absence and living with friends on Dwight Street. “Well, half of my majors need in-person classes,” she said, explaining her decision to take a leave of absence to me over Zoom while cooking herself lunch and baking pastries.

“Plus, I waited so long to come to college. College was literally the thing that helped me get through high school,” she said, whipping some heavy cream for her tiramisu.

“I hated Framingham,” she added.

On paper, Framingham should be one of the last places Cleopatra hates.

Located near Boston, a major city in a deep blue state, Framingham is best known for its demographic diversity. Haitian immigrants, central African immigrants, Puerto

WKND RECOMMENDS A weighted blanket as a substitute for human warmth.

that it was fine to use the N-word. “It takes the power away from the word,” he said.

Cleopatra was the only Black student in the class.

A music teacher in an elementary school in Framingham was fired for calling a Black student the N-word and a monkey. “And this is an elementary school!” Cleopatra emphasized.

“And all these happened in a deep blue area in our country,” she said, “And in a school! School is where kids are supposed to have hope!”

She thought about never going back to Framingham after college and just forgetting about everything, but quarantine cancelled this option for her. She went back home and was forced to see her younger brothers “changing” and bit by bit “chipping away,” worn down by the experiences of everyday racism. She eventually decided she needed to do something.

One of the first projects was to push for the abolishment of the SROs. Framingham High School’s fine arts department was losing its budget. The school was oversubscribed by more than 50 percent. The student printing center ran out of paper every year before school ended. Why would Framingham invest money planting cops at school that would create nothing but fear for non-white students? Over 700 people signed the petition. But Framingham’s superintendent claimed he had no power.

“Literally you are the superintendent!”

Cleopatra exclaimed as if addressing him, “And you are acting as if you have no power and gonna make me feel bad for you? You should feel bad for ME!” The superintendent clearly didn’t get her message that cops should not be present at school. “It’s all about image, you know?” she said, “but race isn’t an image thing.”

She also spread her message on social media, sending infographics and polls. People — anonymously — tried to attack both her and her ideas.

“This is why I don’t engage with Librex,” she said, “They see this as a game, pissing off liberals, the activists. When I asked them in person, they’d be like, ‘Yeah I actually agree with 90 percent of what you’re doing.’ ‘I like what you posted there.’ I can’t take you seriously. Come say the same thing to my face! I bet you don’t.”

She continued, “You’re doing this for fun.

I’m doing this for survival. These are very different circumstances.”

Cleopatra opened her oven and checked on her ladyfingers.

“Yes, I know. I could’ve bought the prepacked ones from Whole Foods,” she said,

popping her batch back into the oven. “But I always like to make every food from scratch.

It takes time, and I always struggle. But it always ends up working. And it always tastes better.”

She opened the lid of the cold brewer to check if there was enough coffee for her tiramisu. “Everything is from scratch. Step by step.”

Despite the initial setbacks, Cleopatra’s projects in Framingham are gaining ground.

She worked with her favorite history teacher, who is white, and redesigned the U.S. history curriculum, centered around “the repressed, not the white supremacists.” But she also made sure that this curriculum provided a nuanced telling of Black history that included the triumphs of people of color in America. “Don’t mention Black people just like they were slaves, then sharecroppers, then fighting for rights. Poor Black people and poor Native American people — they are thriving today.”

She is still pushing for the disbanding of SROs in Framingham High. Besides more conversations with the police department, she has also found criminology professors at Framingham State University and planned a discussion panel to bring people together, address hard topics like the psychology of policing and answer people’s questions.

It will be an uphill battle for her to fight against racism. But what she can do: educate people. Inform them and let them change. Start from scratch. Step by step.

“Baby steps, but smart ways,” she said.

She confessed that despite how much she despises Framingham, she still loves this place. Without Framingham, she wouldn’t have become who she is today. The theater program in Framingham’s school system prepared her for her theater studies. Some people there are her best friends. She had the most personal growth there. Her biggest realizations happened there.

“Really a lot of potential there,” she said, reminiscing about the sunset by the land bridge, with the fallen leaves, the Brazilian pastries and her friends. “When I see the beautiful sunset, I realize this place is full of potential.”

Our call lasted for two hours. She was cooking the entire time. From scratch, she made a tiramisu, a big batch of bread sticks and a meatball pasta dish. A feast. Step by step.

She will devote so many more than two hours for Framingham. Already started from scratch. Step by step. Baby steps, but smart ways.

Contact TONY HAO at tony.hao@yale.edu .

ONLINE THIS WEEK: ARE HUMANS MONSTERS? Claire Fang ‘23 reviews Undertale five years later.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B3

WEEKEND TREAT

// ANASTHASIA SHILOV

// ANASTHASIA SHILOV

“A Labor of Love” Transforms Havenly Treats // BY DOMINIQUE CASTANHEIRA Havenly Treats, a New Haven nonprofit that works to strengthen the economic and political power of refugee women, reopened last Tuesday. The new, long-term location at 25 Temple St., which has limited seating and boatloads of baklava, is a dream come true for the organization’s founders.

Since they began selling baklava in the spring of 2018, Havenly Treats has moved locations often, sharing kitchens with the New Haven Jewish Community Center, Whole G bakery and Katalina’s Bakery.

This status often made it more difficult for the organization to fulfill its primary goal: providing refugee women with job training, education and community organizing skills.

According to the founders, the new location provides the stability that the organization needs — especially during a pandemic — and allows them to consider their future goals.

“This is a stable place,” said Nieda Abbas, the head chef, trainer and co-founder of Havenly Treats. “It gives us room to breathe, room to relax, gives our spirit a break.”

The current Havenly location previously belonged to Mr. Crab’s — a seafood shack with crab-shaped American flags lining the walls. Havenly directors said the process of changing the atmosphere required substantial vision. But the staff did not undertake it alone. Instead, they got help from Emerge, a New Haven nonprofit that assists formerly incarcerated people with getting jobs in construction and provides them with personal and emotional support. Emerge staff worked collaboratively with Havenly, building the walls in the new location. Havenly also worked with MakeHaven, who put up signs and decorated the walls with vinyl stickers. Miguel Angel Mendoza, a local artist who immigrated to Connecticut from Oaxaca twenty years ago, plans to paint a mural on Havenly’s front window depicting symbols reflective of their mission.

“It really does feel like a labor of love and a team effort,” said Camila Guiza-Chavez, community outreach director at Havenly.

The Temple Street location, which is equipped with both a large kitchen and

classrooms, is essential for operating Havenly’s fellowship program. The program provides fellows with paid work experience and adult education, reflecting Havenly’s mission that “no one should be forced to choose between making an income and getting an education.” While the program previously focused on employing Arabic-speaking women from the Middle East and North Africa region, it has recently expanded to include Spanish-speaking fellows. There are six women in the current cohort of the program: four from Sudan, one from Mexico and one from Guatemala.

Some have lived in New Haven for 20 years, while others moved to the city just a couple of months ago. Guiza-Chavez said that the fellows have different goals for the program, ranging from getting a degree to securing a job in the food industry.

During the fellowship, the women work at the restaurant 15-20 hours a week. They also attend four to six hours of workshops, which include curricula for ESL, self-advocacy and political education, all developed in-house. After the six months of training, Havenly and their community partners provide support for the fellows to secure stable employment.

While Havenly has translators for classes and provides individual support, there are no translators in the kitchen. Abbas and the fellows work together to find ways around language barriers. They communicate through English or with gestures, and they have succeeded in creating bonds that extend far beyond the restaurant.

“I don’t treat the fellows as workers or trainees,” Abbas said. “I treat them like my sisters.”

It is no surprise that those involved in Havenly view it as a family. The organization is dedicated to forging a long-term support network, and graduates of the fellowship are encouraged to become trainers for the new cohorts.

The support network is one facet of Havenly’s approach to refugee integration, which focuses not only on getting a job but

on ending cycles of structural marginalization. Caterina Passoni, the executive director and co-founder of Havenly Treats, believes the Havenly model has the potential to impact how the Elm City approaches refugee integration more broadly. Over the summer, Havenly produced a graphic series where they started discussions on what it means to be a refugee.

“It’s important to emphasize that we define refugees as people who came here seeking refuge,” said Guiza-Chavez. “We don’t use that word as it’s legally defined in the U.S. … We stick to its more pure or basic form.”

The graphic series also explored the overlap between Havenly’s mission and the Black Lives Matter movement. Yale students engaged with the series, and Guiza-Chavez emphasized that students should understand refugee and immigration issues as related to other social justice movements in the United States. She also sees working with Havenly as one way for Yale students to engage in mutual aid efforts “distributing resources” from the University to New Haven.

“One thing that happens at Yale is refugee integration silos itself and becomes categorized,” she said. “I would like to produce more material that helps [Yale] students engage with how we think about what we do.”

Yale students comprise most of the volunteer intern team at Havenly Treats, and Guiza-Chavez said they are crucial to the organization’s work, performing tasks ranging from formatting menus to translating. Havenly Treats currently has four open intern positions, in which interns would provide one-on-one support to one of the fellows. Beyond interning, Passoni says there are many ways community members can engage with their work.

“Just ordering at the counter helps [the women] with the training, practicing English, practicing visual literacy,” said Passoni, adding that people can also help by publicizing Havenly’s advocacy workshops

and fighting for better working conditions for refugees and immigrants.

Havenly’s mission to help refugee women prosper is visible in every element of their work; 100 percent of profits support refugee women. The mission is particularly personal to Nieda Abbas, who is originally from Iraq and survived war and life in refugee camps.

Guiza-Chavez firmly believes it is Abbas’s passion and skill for cooking that makes Havenly what it is.

When Havenly first started, it focused on selling desserts. But that model has changed due to COVID-19. Between March and June of 2020, Havenly fellows served over 5,000 meals through the COVID-19 food relief program, focusing on feeding people who were left out of the government response to the pandemic. And in the summer of 2020, Havenly continued their food relief program while also expanding their store menu to include savory Middle Eastern dishes. On their website, they now describe themselves as “a mezze bar with a mission.”

Dishes like falafel, biryani and mujaddara are currently on offer for contactless pickup at their storefront, in addition to the classic baklava. But the directors of Havenly also hope that their new location will become more than a restaurant. They want people of all cultures and languages to feel at home there and dream of eventually adding study spaces and an on-site child care facility.

“Especially after COVID ends, it would be really wonderful to host different kinds of events and make this a space that is multiuse and alive,” said Guiza-Chavez.

Havenly Treats aims to have 15 women per cohort per kitchen and to create more chapters in other Connecticut cities and beyond.

But no matter how far they expand, they will stay true to their mission of empowering refugee women to shape their communities.

“Havenly was made by my hands,” Abbas said. “My dream was to open a restaurant and to have a home … Now I have both.”

Contact DOMINIQUE CASTANHEIRA at dominique .castanheira@yale.edu .

ONLINE THIS WEEK: WKND RECOMMENDS Making a plan to vote.

TOWARDS THE MASON JAR: Anjali Mangla ‘24 explores the annals of the zero waste movement.

PAGE B4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND LOVE // DORA GUO

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner // BY ÁNGELA PÉREZ

My kitchen counter is a mess. Flour makes its way into the miniscule gaps between counter and stove. Scattered fruits and vegetables litter the surface of the counter, partially cut and put in the “for later” pile that we try to return to so as to not waste any food. There are limes sliced in half, dried up from the humid heat of a tropical summer.

A pilón stands at the corner of the counter, still filled with garlic, olive oil and salt to be put on tostones. Mom always says that if the food isn’t colorful, it won’t be good. So there’s color to spare in this kitchen.

The flavor of adobo, rice and beans still lingers in my mouth from tasting the food as we cook. I try to imitate what I’ve seen the women in my family do, just dipping my finger in the hot pan or pot to taste it. I usually pretend it doesn’t burn — even if it does — just so it looks like I’m doing it like them.

The sizzling, hissing noise coming from the pan reminds me of when I accidentally burned myself with oil after not listening to Mom. It reminds me of my grandma, bent over a pan of frying plantain and telling me to not leave them in too long or they’ll get soggy.

The smell makes me wish I could save scents like pictures on a camera. I would bottle up that medley of spice and comfort and send it to my family living in the States.

At this time of year, they would usually be visiting us in Puerto Rico and eating with us while Grandma cooks.

That isn’t happening now. My family isn’t visiting, and most of us are too scared to

visit Grandma and risk getting her sick just so she can cook for us. 2020 has changed our family routine: no more big family dinners, no more beachside grills until the mosquitoes bite up our legs.

But what has remained is the importance of sharing our meals together, even though it’s just me and my parents now.

When quarantine started, we stopped eating out of the house to be safe. We made our usual meals, occasionally complaining about having to repeat recipes. But eventually, we started trying new ones. Dad decided he would learn to make paellas.

Mom decided to try making low-carb meals.

I countered that and decided to stressbake every possible pastry you could imagine. Babkas, berry pies, brownies, ice cream (from scratch!), chocolate chip cookies — you name it, I made it.

Our days were defined by the meals we prepared. In the mornings, my dad would make coffee, a strict routine he’s followed my whole life. He packs coffee into an espresso maker, leaving it on the stove while he heats up milk and fills mugs with brown sugar. The coffee is a perfect balance of sweet and bitter. Culturally, coffee is important to Puerto Ricans. We feed light coffee — more milk than anything really — in sippy cups to our kids as they grow up. My childhood and adolescence were marked by the smell of dad’s coffee waking me up in the morning. He sent brown sugar in the mail just last week, just to make sure I was making the closest thing as possible to his coffee

while I’m in New Haven.

Lunch is less structured than dinner, but still a meeting point. We all go to the kitchen to make food, get a second cup of coffee and talk about our days. We keep our windows open, letting in the sunlight through our kitchen window as we eat. We check in and talk about what we’ll eat for dinner before splitting up again to return to work.

We succumb to ordering takeout on occasion, but dinner has become a consistent family affair. We work and run errands and go about our lives separately, but we always reconvene in the kitchen to fry or grill or boil or mix our food for the day. On rainy nights, we eat soup with gandules fresh from our own garden. On more casual nights, we have salty rice with beans. We make pasta and mix different sauces together to see what comes of it. (We even made pasta from scratch one night. It was a total mess, but so worth it.)

We sit at our kitchen counter with the TV mindlessly playing in the background. We make plans and check in with faraway family members by giving them a call over dinner.

My mom jokes that the secret ingredient to a good meal is making it with love. I discovered this to be true in the last six months.

Our best meals over quarantine were made with all three of us in the kitchen, dividing tasks and mixing flavors. Even if we made the most basic of meals, it was the best when we did it together. If a pastry or a meal took a while to make, we’d watch sitcoms and movies while laying on our L-shaped couch, swaddled in blankets with glasses of a wine

my sommelier dad decided to open.

I should mention that wine is a big part of my family culture. Sommeliers are wine specialists — they study the drink in all its shapes and forms, learning the details that most don’t think to consider. (I should also mention that I am 18 and, in Puerto Rico, it was completely legal for me to try the wine my father decided to open.) Dad saves some wines for certain events, like a few bottles of champagne from the year I was born — he has kept them for milestones in my life.

But in the last six months, he has opened wines that he would normally keep for special occasions. He teaches me what to look out for, what different colors and smells mean. I have become familiar with the smell of grapes and the satisfying pop of a cork.

After seeing him do this for so long without understanding much of it, it’s been fascinating to see why Dad finds it so interesting, to learn what he is passionate about.

The little pandemic circle my family created for ourselves was a bit stressful at first.

We were panicked about what we could and couldn’t do to stay safe. But throughout our time there, we fell into routines marked by our food and the time we spent together as a result of it. It’s nice to think that even while the world is off-kilter, we’ve made our own little bubble of coffee, food, and wine, a place to feel safe and simply be with each other.

Contact ÁNGELA PÉREZ at angela.perez@yale.edu

Sex on the WKND: Fu king Roommates I’m fucking my roommate and we’re madly in love. No one knows about us. What should I do?

What should you do? This evening, while you were probably going doggy with your roomie lover, my roommate and I spent 20 minutes hip thrusting (bodyweight only) to the beat of 2010s pop music so we could get the bubble butts of our dreams. I love my roommate, but as we raised our hips and clenched our butt cheeks for the 900th time, I couldn’t help but wish it was my 8-inch ex thrusting into me — instead of us thrusting toward the paint peeling on the ceiling.

Major props to you for not only finding a pandemic-friendly fuck buddy, but finding a pandemic-friendly fuck buddy you can meet up with without putting shoes on. (I’m assuming you don’t wear shoes inside the house — if people who wear shoes indoors are finding love right now then things are really fucked for me.) As someone who pined over her disgustingly gorgeous roommate all summer, I’m not surprised you’ve fallen madly in love. After a few weeks living in quarantine together, even your disheveled roommate who leaves stacks of dirty dishes in the kitchen and sheds hair all over the sink starts to appear sexier and sexier as the days go on. The tension builds every morning and night in the Jack & Jill bathroom when your hand brushes against theirs as you both reach for your toothbrushes.

Before you know it, their disgusting habits have become “cute” “quirks” and you’re fantasizing about them during house game night. After all, who else is there to pine after?

Since no one knows about your situation right now, perhaps consider keeping it that way. Sneak in a wink or a dirty text over the dinner table and relish in your other roommates’ cluelessness. Knock on their door at 3 a.m. or squeeze in a quickie between Zoom classes. Cover their mouth during sex and point toward the thin walls. There’s nothing hotter than a secret love affair.

But at some point, the sneaking around, the lying to your roommates, the absolute lack of privacy in your own home, will get old. The fact that your fuck buddy lives two doors down will seem more suffocating than convenient. Maybe you’ve already reached that stage and that’s why you’re reaching out to an anonymous sex columnist for advice.

You’re keeping this scandalous affair secret for a reason — why? Are you scared that your friends and roommates will disapprove? Are you worried your feelings are circumstantial and will fade away when the pandemic ends? When’s the last time roommate-cest actually worked out for anyone?

If you’re both madly in love, you shouldn’t be afraid to raise

// ALICE MAO

WKND RECOMMENDS Laminating to feel something.

these questions with your roommate. What are they going to do — move out? Embrace the fact that we are living in a godforsaken pandemic and it’s a beautiful thing that you’ve found love during these apocalyptic times. The people in your life might be shocked at first, but crazier things have happened these past few weeks, like Zayn and Gigi making a baby and Yale Health telling us not to rim because… COVID. Speaking of the elephant in the room, roommate-cest is one of the best ways to practice Yale-approved “Safe Sex” during the pandemic. Sleep easy tonight in your twin-XL knowing you and your roommate are doing your part to keep the community safe.

Stay close without being close: Consensual virtual connections over the phone or on web platforms can be ways to interact socially and sexually without exchanging fluids.

Lucky you! With a roomie, you can enjoy the full capacity of your fluid privilege and spare your poor eyes of any more screen time.

Spice it up: Use this time to liven up your sex life while staying safe! Though wearing a mask while having sex might not be your thing, it is a good way to add a layer of protection, especially since heavy breathing can spread the virus further.

Unlike the rest of Yale, you and your roommate can escape that awkward “Wellllllllllll, should we take our masks off now?” dilemma when meeting a new partner. And if you’re into it, wearing a mask during sex is basically breath play, and everyone knows breath play is really fucking hot.

Think Twice: Rimming, or any sexual activity that involves putting your mouth on the anus, might spread COVID-19. Virus in feces may enter your mouth and potentially cause an infection.

Consider pressing pause for now.

This concern isn’t relevant for you, so long as you and the roomie are getting tested regularly and keeping a limited social circle. Press play, baby.

--Sex on the WKND is a biweekly column dedicated to answering your questions about all things sex, love and relationships at Yale. Submit your juicy questions here and I’ll answer them next time ;) Contact SEX ON THE WEEKEND at sexonthewknd@gmail.com.

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