TYH LV 2

The Yale Herald Volume LV, Number 2 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, February 1, 2013

From the staff Sometimes you can’t help but eavesdrop. Overhearing gossip can be inadvertent, like what happened to me the other day in Blue State. I found myself waiting for my large Earl Grey in line behind a clique of freshbiddies discussing their weekend plans. “It’s gonna be EPIC,” insisted the most enthused. “It’s just gonna be, like, so epic.” For a few minutes, I felt a bit left out. Their plans were set, their invites locked down and their outfits selected. Cool for them. But the thing is, they don’t even really know what Epic is like I do.

If you’re wondering what constitutes true Epic these days, you don’t have to party with my non-friends in the Blue State line or even take ENGL 130: Epic (surprise!). Instead, just read this issue’s fabulous cover story,

by TYH princess Sophie Grais, SM ’14. You’ll learn that Epic is actually

The Yale Herald Volume V, Number 1 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Jan. 25, 2013

EDITORIALSTAFF: Editor-in-chief: Emma Schindler Managing Editors: Colin Groundwater, Eli Mandel, Maude Tisch Executive Editor: Emily Rappaport Assistant Executive Editor: Olivia Rosenthal Online Editors: Marcus Moretti, John Stillman Assistant Online Editor: Micah Rodman Senior Editors: Sam Bendinelli, Ariel Doctoroff, Carlos Gomez, Lucas Iberico Lozada, Nicolás Medina Mora, Clare Sestanovich Culture Editor: Micah Rodman Features Editors: Margaret Neil, Katy Osborn, Olivia Rosenthal Opinion Editor: Andrew Wagner Reviews Editor: Elliah Heifetz Voices Editor: Sophie Grais Design Editors: Julia Kittle-Kamp, Lian Fumerton-Liu, Christine Mi, Zachary Schiller Assistant Design Editor: Madeline Butler Photo Editor: Rebecca Wolenski

also the name of an electronic medical records system set to launch Feb. 1 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Why, you ask, is this relevant? Sophie explores the recent consolidation of the aforementioned behemoth medical facility (fourth largest hospital system in America—things are real!) and St. Raphael’s Hospital, a small former community health provider. The events speak to a lot of the healthcare issues that are required knowledge for any/all informed American citizens.

And whether you’re in lecture or in line at Blue State, you should definitely be an engaged New Havener. This week, that means knowing your stuff about

BUSINESS STAFF: Publishers: William Coggins, Evan Walker-Wells Director of Advertising: Shreya Ghei Director of Finance: Stephanie Kan Director of Development: Joe Giammittorio ONLINE STAFF: Webmaster: Navy Encinias Bullblog Editor-in-chief: John Stillman Bullblog Associate Editors: David Gore, Alisha Jarwala, Grace Lindsey, Cindy Ok, Micah Rodman, Eamon Ronan, Jesse Schreck, Jack Schlossberg, Maude Tisch

John DeStefano’s decision not to run for re-election after 10 (!) terms as mayor of Yale’s town, and Sam Bendinelli, BK ’13, fills you in on the news you can use. Also inside: Lara Sokoloff, TC ’16, talks to Cristina Rodriguez, Yale Law

The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

School’s first Hispanic professor. There are reviews—Destiny’s Child! Local Natives!—and an essay on sleep by Charlotte Parker, BK ’13. We’ve also got an examination of Rumpus’s “50 Most” for gossip fans, and a tea tour of New Haven, for those who want more than Blue State can offer.

Also, log on! Check us out on da web—make sure to peep thebullblog.com for even more Herald crew cyber-fun. As for me, I’ll be channeling Gossip Girl while waiting for hot beverages. Keep it Epic, New Haven.

You know you love me. XOXO, Maude Tisch Managing Editor

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2012-2013 academic year for 65 dollars.

Please address correspondence to The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 Email: Emily.Rappaport@yale.edu Web: www.yaleherald.com The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2011, The Yale Herald, Inc. Have a nice day.

Cover by Madeline Butler YH Staff

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The Yale Herald (Jan. 25, 2013)

IN THIS ISSUE

COVER 12 Sophie Grais, SM ‘14, examines Yale-New Haven Hospital’s recent acquisition of the Hospital of St. Raphael and how it reflects larger trends in American healthcare.

(Rebecca Wolenski/YH Staff)

VOICES 6

7 8

Daniel Roza, SM ‘15, sits down with Linda Friedlaender, curator of education at the Yale Center for British Art.

FEATURES 10

Sam Bendinelli, BK ’13, explores Mayor DeStefano Jr.’s surprising decision not to seek re-election.

16

Lara Sokoloff, TC ‘16, looks into Yale Law School’s appointment of its first tenured Hispanic professor, Cristina Rodriguez.

Charlotte Parker, BK ‘13, reflects on the joys of not getting enough sleep.

OPINION: Kendra Dawsey, MC ‘14, questions the value of women being allowed to serve in active combat, and Erin Vanderhoof, ES ‘13, takes a hard look at priviledge.

REVIEWS

CULTURE 18

Anna-Sophie Harling, DC ‘16, profiles Rumpus’ infamous “50 Most” issue. Also: Claire Zhang, CC ‘15, explores the social impact of the new Tivil TV streaming service.

20

Lucas Sin, DC ’15, on New Haven’s best tea.

Also: Destiny’s Child, Tegan and Sara, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters in 3D, and Local Natives.

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2012)

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THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY The Herald’s week in review: what rocked, what sucked, and who took the lead in IM bowling.

CREDIT/D/FAIL Cr:

Temple Run 2 The Psychology, Biology, and Politics of Food is hands-down my fave class this semester, but I had a breakdown when I found out that lecture in the YUAG Auditorium meant “Yale Secure” would not grace the top right-hand corner of my screen for three hours a week. Enter Temple Run 2: the fastest growing mobile game of all time and the mindless distraction every Yalie has been pining for. For those of you familiar with the first installment: if Temple Run is that dependable friend of yours you had in middle school who was really cute but had braces, then Temple Run 2 is her hot older sister who had a tan and a car. While I can no longer enjoy Temple Run’s Amazonian jungle feel without consistently being reminded of the fact that I need to be applying for that study-abroad fellowship in Ecuador ahorita, Temple Run 2’s mountainous, vaguely East-Asian setting is ambiguous enough that Guy Dangerous and I can chill anxiety-free. True, I may not be totally sure (read: have any idea) what’s going in Dr. B’s lecture on the physiology of taste… but as zip lining and cart-riding join Temple Run’s original cast of gerunds—jumping, turning, and sliding— my high score puts last semester to shame.

—Austin Bryniarski

D:

YCC What’s going on, YCC? What is up? I’m troubled by all this reshuffling. Is this delayed fallout from the GoogleDoc catastrophe? Does internal strife plague the administration? If only FOIA requests worked on college councils. Worrying that you’re riding first class on this metaphorical “struggle bus” keeps me up at night/in lecture, and it’s a nasty kind of hurt.

I will admit, I like the way you keep me on my toes. Elevating my resolutions was something of a temporary relief. Then I found whathasyccdone.com, and that glorious chorus of “Got any more?” “Mmhm, and?” and “What else?” had me clicking on for hours.

But the other day, I was flipping through YCC’s 6page Salad Report, when I realized that I was flipping through a 6-page YCC Salad Report. I can’t not ask about what the hell possessed y’all to write a report on salads. Still, I believe in you. (“Don’t stop B-Levin” is always my mantra when dealing with student government.) And if you really want to redeem yourself, you can always have Taylor Swift headline Spring Fling.

—Austin Bryniarski

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

F:

“Sorority Selection” There’s lots that chaps my hide about Greek rush season. My Facebook feed is now full of “THINK THETA” Instagrams, #PPL hashtags, “Kappa Love!!!!! <3” timeline posts, and notifications that each new “baby” now has 103 new friends. Campus is teeming with stranger-onstranger man dates and girl flirting, bizarre rituals that not even Laurie Santos can explain. But no one knows quite how to capture the spirit of Yale student life like the YDN, and with their recent anonymous “Sorority Selection” piece, our York Street friends have really reached new heights. I don’t need to be in AEPi to know that slamming diversity, making jokes about eating disorders, and calling girls ugly or “slutty” is not kosher.

“Throw what you know,” YDN. —Austin Bryniarski —graphics by Zachary Schiller YH Staff

BY THE

NUMBERS

BOOM/BUST

#

TYNG CUP STANDINGS

OUTGOING: Weather Patterns that Make Sense

1. Jonathan Edwards 2. Trumbull 3. Saybrook 4. Pierson 5. Timothy Dwight 6. Ezra Stiles 7. Davenport 8. Branford 9. Silliman 10. Morse 11. Berkeley 12. Calhoun

Once upon a time the atmosphere was like, “Hey, Connecticut! I’m NOT going to shit my emotions on your head like a bipolar drug addict.” Memories, am I right? Since then, we’ve clearly done something to piss God off, because every time I leave my cozy single in Trumbull I feel like the Lord Almighty left the weather up to a Magic 8 Ball. It’s okay, though—nothing gives me more joy than watching a day-old snowman die in the heat.

INDEX

INCOMING: A Capella Jam Season Don’t you find instruments simply intolerable? I do. Can’t stand them.

That’s why I prefer my music purged of anything that’s not the human voice.

If you’re like me, you’ll be ecstatic to hear that a capella jam season is just around the corner. So save your money, postpone that GHeav sandwich, and spend it on jam tickets! Come for ~MaGiCaL~ riffs, but stay for drunk alums harmonizing in the front row. Cough, cough, Sam Tsui.

— Jake Dawe

537 490 468.5 458.5 433.5 399.5 386 363.5 362.5 356 294.5 91.5

91

TOP FIVE

Number of days between the inaugurations of president Richard Levin and New Haven mayor John DeStefano.

151

Ways to Survive the Cold

Number of days between Levin’s retirement announcement and DeStefano’s announcement that he would not run for an eleventh term.

5 4 3 2 1

Treat it like a tailgate — schnapps hot chocolate and Kahlua coffee are wasted on November.

Ugly sweater overload. Macklemore it all the way over to Salvo and snatch up all the hideous, fuzzy sweaters you can find. WEAR THEM ALL AT ONCE. Obnoxious accessories. If you don’t have a shapkaushanka (apparently that’s what those Russian fur earflap hats are called), then I don’t know what to say to you.

Never leave your dorm. Instead, start indulging in Tivli. Maybe make sure to keep up with work, but mostly make sure to keep up with Facebook stalking (you’ll need to remember what people look like).

Did I mention alcohol?

— Carolyn Lipka

1.5 billion Amount, in dollars, that DeStefano pledged to spend in 1998 on rebuilding public schools in New Haven.

45 Highest percentage of the vote any DeStefano opponent has managed in a mayoral election over the last 20 years.

1 Number of New Haven citizens known to have John DeStefano bicep tattoos. The tattoo in question has the caption “Original Gangsta.”

Sources: 1) New Haven Mayor’s Office 2) New Haven Mayor’s Office 3) New Haven Mayor’s Office 4) New Haven Independent 5) CT.com — Aaron Gertler YH Staff The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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SITTING DOWN WITH LINDA FRIEDLAENDER

by Daniel Roza Courtesy of Linda Friedlander

Linda Friedlaender is the Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and head of the YCBA Student Guide Program. Friedlaender attracted international media attention in 2000 when she unveiled a program called the “The Observational Skills Workshop,” the goal of which is to hone the art of observation in students at the Yale School of Medicine. The program has since served as the template for similar programs around the world.

Her most recent initiative is an art class for children on the autism spectrum and their parents. The Herald sat down with her to talk about these art initiatives, her interest in British art, why you should be into it, too —and, of course, the pleasures of Downton Abbey.

YH: The Yale Center for British Art is a very specialized.

What led you to art, museums, and British art?

LF: When I was a freshman in college, I discovered art history, and I loved it. I did think about becoming a judge, but that was a time when there weren’t as many role models or mentors for females in those high-up places. But luckily, art history became my passion, and I took as much of it as I could in college. I took a particular interest in the way that art history was taught. That led me from one museum to another, and I accumulated responsibilities along the way. When I was starting to get involved with museum education, it was a field still in its infancy. Today, there isn’t a museum worth its salt that doesn’t have a museum educator or a museum education department. It has really taken off as a field—the number of graduate schools that offer museumology or museum education programs has proliferated across the country, and each museum has its own approach and philosophy to its museum education. I was attracted to the YCBA because I got a taste of what its like to be in an academic community at Mt. Holyoke College’s art museum. Being on the board of a museum, you have a lot of input on how decisions are made, so you can effect a lot of change.

When I first arrived at the YCBA, the education department was extremely small. I’ve really tried to boost the program offerings of the department since then.

YH: One of the programs that you started was for Yale medical school students. How did that come about?

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

LF: Thirteen years ago, I started it with a professor at the medical school. Both of us wanted to do something to enhance the observational skills of medical students.

Shortly before we started working on this program, I visited a friend who was going to have surgery. She was clearly upset: she was running her hands through her hair and she was restless. But when the resident walked in, he stood by the door and didn’t recognize her agitation or try to calm her or engage with her on an emotional level. That really upset me, and motivated me to plan the Art of Observation program. The works of art that we use have a lot of gestures, a lot of facial expressions and a lot of body language so that there is a lot to read and analyze. It fortunately met with success, and has been replicated all over the country and the world. And not just in medical schools, but also in places like Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, where the faculty are trying to instill more sensitivity for how to observe and interact with a diverse clientele. The basic premise is to apply a very scientific process to reading paintings—making nonjudgmental observations about paintings is both harder than you would expect and more revealing about the actual nature of a visual work. And it works for everyone, from medical and business school students to children.

YH: Is that the same principle that you are applying to your autism initiative?

LF: The autism class is a weekend activity for children on the autism spectrum and their families. A large part of it is to teach parents exercises that they can use to interact with and stimulate their children at home. In the classes, we receive a very dramatic spectrum of kids with autism—some kids have IQs of 140 but have numerous social disabilities, while others are completely nonverbal.

We try to split up the kids so that we can adjust the teaching style to best address their needs. But some diversity is always good: I find that all of the children and their parents get a lot out of hearing from and interacting with other children on the autism spectrum.

We always try to engage them with art in a multi-sensory experience. For example, for a painting of a forest, we try to find smells that would go well with that piece of

art, such as the musk of moss or bark. We bring an actual piece of grass for the children to feel, and play sounds of the forest while we talk about the painting.

YH: A lot of people scratch their heads when they learn that Yale has a Center for British Art. What do you think is the value of a museum dedicated to British art on an undergraduate campus?

LF: British art has come a long way in terms of making a name for itself on the world stage. In the 1990s, British artists really burst onto the international scene, and for the first time in a long time, London became the go-to center for cutting-edge outré, and it still enjoys that status today. Perhaps that will change. It will probably come and go. But that Yale has such a comprehensive collection of Britain’s artistic heritage, in such a beautiful building, no less, is a great resource for students. It’s a center of groundbreaking scholarship, and it’s an international attraction.

YH: The up-coming exhibit at the YCBA is called Edwardian Opulence—have you ever seen Downton Abbey?

LF: Yes! The way I got hooked was when some YCBA staff took a field trip to Philadelphia to look at the new Barnes Collection, and on the way back, a colleague started to play Downton Abbey on the DVD player. After that, I made a business of watching it. Downton Abbey will provide a great backdrop and general awareness for Edwardian Opulence. The manors, grounds, imports from the Empire, dresses, class structure, all of that makes a huge impact on the art and style of the period.

YH: If you could have one painting from the YCBA for your personal collection, which would it be?

LF: [After a period of deliberation.] One of my favorite pieces in the Center is Whistler’s “Nocturne”—although I know a lot of people will say that Whistler was born in America, he spent a lot of time in Britain, and people consider “Nocturne” to be a British piece. I love the color, I love the way that he ventures into the abstract by making the physicality of the paint so apparent, but still gives the painting a concrete subject matter. I just love looking at it. It’s requested a lot for loans, but I always fight for it to stay in the Center!

—This interview was condensed by the author.

NEVER YOUR BEDTIME

by Charlotte Parker

slept on top of my mattress, in a green mummy sleeping bag with a broken zipper, for the three weeks before winter break. This is not the sort of thing you plan to do. In fact, my sleeping ambitions had been quite different when I got back to my apartment that Saturday after Thanksgiving. I had cleaned my room and stripped my bed for washing. I had thought I’d start the three weeks ahead in an orderly fashion, before the reading week shit hit the fan.

I brought my sheets to the my apartment building’s dank basement. I put them in the washing machine.

I added the appropriate amount of detergent. I realized, only then, that the machines’ plugs had been ripped out of their wall sockets and that there were gaping holes where the quarter slots had been.

Landlord Larry told us later that Yale Police was investigating this grand quarter theft. In the meantime, I was left with a pile of sheets soaked with detergent, and no immediate way to wash them. I put them in a garbage bag for safekeeping, unrolled my sleeping bag on a quilt-covered mattress, and went to Box 63.

The fall’s trajectory had tended toward late nights over standard sleeping arrangements, chaos over comfort. In August, I had moved into an apartment where the shower dial summons cold water when it’s turned to hot and hot water when it’s turned to cold. In September, I had stayed up late practicing case questions about Mexican beer companies and then noticed that my blue blazer had paint stains on the sleeve when I interviewed at UCS. In October, I had driven to Branford between classes three days a week to interview a 66-yearold pyrotechnic named Uncle Guido. Over October break, on the Saturday night before a half marathon, I drank spicy Bloody Marys and slept for five hours on the floor.

On adrenaline and the fumes of those Bloody Marys, I ran 13.1 miles and beat my fastest time. Thriving on no sleep was a revelation. I had spent the first three years of Yale counting the hours I slept. I had operated under the assumption that I was a Person Who Needed Sleep. I swore that I could feel the difference between seven and eight hours, that six hours every night for a week would make me a zombie, that five hours the night before a paper was due meant that I needed 10 the night after it was due, even when all I wanted to do was hit Toad’s to celebrate its completion.

Hurricane Sandy came right after the half marathon.

My roommate and I walked around our block, the only

I

ones out, dodging falling twigs and windy rain. It was like the hook of a Ke$ha song—you know it’s not good for you like a Vivaldi concerto is, maybe, but it lifts you up and pushes you forward.

With two nights in the sleeping bag under my belt, I brought my sheets to a friend’s house. I ran the washing machine while I tried to finish a profile of Uncle Guido, the Branford pyrotechnic. When the sun came up and the rest of my friend’s housemates stumbled into the kitchen for coffee, I put the sheets in the dryer. Then I went to class and forgot them.

Perhaps the sleeping bag was inevitable, after a fall of seeing possibility in a little mess. It stayed on top of my quilt for the next three weeks like a giant green caterpillar. It made sleep seem more casual, a chore that could be postponed with no repercussions. I came back

to it after those long, rich days when the morning feels like it happened a week ago. I wrote everything I had to and turned it in on time. I went for long runs and had long lunches. I went out like everyone says they do senior year, often, and hung out calmly under the overhang of Beinecke eating food from Gourmet Heaven long after midnight on the night before a paper was due.

I had told myself, before this fall, that I counted sleep to keep myself balanced. I have notebooks from freshman, sophomore, junior year—notebooks full of half-completed op-eds that I started so that I could complain about how scattered our lives are here. There’s so much to do at Yale, I’d write. There’s so much pressure to do it all that we juggle four to five different subject areas in our minds without committing to any. We skim our reading. We tell 10 people on Cross Campus that we’ll have lunch with them and don’t follow through. We write an article for a publication and start tutoring middle schoolers and then don’t continue writing or tutoring.

I counted sleep because it made decisions for me. No way I can try that, and go there, and dance here, because I will never get to sleep eight hours. It was my attempt to impose order on my life. I was scared of feeling unbalanced. I was scared of being taken over by something—of writing, say, until I fell asleep at my computer. All of those op-eds are half-completed because I made myself go to sleep before I finished them.

I finally had time to pick up the sheets from my friend’s house after my last big assignment in December, two days before I left for home. I made my bed. I marveled, with a bleary-eyed lack of adrenaline, how having sheets made me want to sleep.

I slept, over break. I had 24 hours at my disposal for sleep and I slept under a comforter and I slept on the couch and I watched a lot of Homeland and then I started to think with some longing about the nights before exams. The nights when Bass hums. People giggle a little too loudly, run naked. Sometimes they bring toothpaste.

Necessary, nights like that. We draw our own meaning from mess. We fall together in a bit of endorsed insanity and make things happen. I think it’s like the 22-year-old equivalent of reading by flashight under the covers long after your mother has told you to go to bed. The pages rustle amplified, and you make shadow stories on the wall while all the grown-ups sleep.

—graphic by Devon Geyelin

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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OPINION VICTORY FOR WHOM?

PRIVILEGING OTHERS

by Kendra Dawsey

by Erin Vanderhoof

Last week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the U.S. armed forces would end a 20-year ban on women serving in official combat roles on the front lines. Many Americans rejoiced that women would now be able to fight alongside men in defending our country’s borders, considering it to be a step toward equal-rights.

When solely considering women in the U.S. military, there can be little doubt that this move is a win. Indeed, the blurring between outright combat and non-combative roles meant that women had already been serving in unofficial combat roles for quite sometime. The lift on the ban will allow women to have the same career opportunities as men through promotion of fields that have been cut off to women due to their unofficial combat status.

However, to truly consider this move to be a “feminist” win, one would have to only take into consideration American women. Internationally, United States military power has negative effects on countless civilians—civilians who are, more often than not, women. There are the increasing number of widows in Iraq who must raise families alone in a war torn state, Afghan women who do not find themselves any safer after the U.S. occupation made to “liberate” them, or the untold number of families in Yemen, Northwest Pakistan, Somalia, and other regions who are the victims of unmanned drones strikes. The idea that the ending of the combat ban is a victory for women, then, only holds when considering women protected under the umbrella of American nationality.

War further has a role in destructing families those of us fortunate enough to not have loved ones in the military, or live somewhere that is undergoing a military occupation, cannot even fathom. In Fallujah and Basra in Iraq, birth defects in children rose by 60 percent after the war.

It is said that these birth defects could have stemmed from the lead and mercury used in US weapons during the war. Although more research needs to be done on exactly what is causing these defects, imagine the totality of trauma inflicted upon the people of Fallujah and Basra—

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

after surviving a war, they must now fight for their child’s health while rebuilding their life and family.

Although pundits may be proud of America for letting a new subset of the population more fully into its ranks, I am wary of solely celebrating the U.S. military without criticism. Indeed, this is not the first time in recent history that our discourse has focused around a celebration of the military’s trend towards progressiveness. In 2011 there was the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), and just last week saw the Air Force Global Strike Command posted that Martin Luther King Jr. would “be proud to see our global strike team . . . composed of Airmen, civilians, and contractors from every race, creed, background, and religion.” The latter is an especially egregious attempt to use the legacy of MLK, a staunch critic of the American military, to paint a positive picture of the army.

There is a danger in viewing such actions as allowing women into combat and the repeal of DADT as indicating that the military is transforming into a more progressive institution. Despite these more “progressive” changes in demographics, the military continues to be highly problematic in the ways that it operates around the globe. By solely focusing on the “positive” side of the military, we allow ourselves to be blinded to the many flaws it still contains. We must continue to be diligent in maintaining a critical eye towards the military, no matter what victories the national discourse attempts to limit our focus on.

Focusing exclusively on incremental steps in progress distracts from the continuing necessity of being critical of an institution that remains largely detrimental on a global scale. It’s too easy to get swept up in celebrating the U.S. military’s move towards progressiveness and forget the ways that military negatively impacts people’s lives, whether those of women or otherwise, around the globe. Much more work needs to be done in reforming the military than simply letting women into combat—we must thoroughly examine the effects it has on lives both at home and abroad.

It’s counterintuitive that I would learn most of what I know about poverty at Yale.

Back home in New Mexico, poverty was pervasive and hard to define; it weaved in and out of lives of the people I knew unpredictably, and touched almost everyone in some way.

But here, poverty is something that happens firmly outside of the Yale bubble. It’s something out there that we hold political, moral, and cultural debates about and leave campus to help alleviate. This became transparently clear to me when I first came to Yale and experienced a curious thing: I met people for whom poverty had always been a far-off idea, and not an explanation for why your neighborhood was a little dicey at night or why your friend’s mom was never around.

Coming to Yale, then, meant seeing poverty in a new light. It was through the concept of “checking your privilege” that I finally was able to make sense of it. If you’ve been in a WGSS class, in an activist meeting, or on a social justice Tumblr, you may have heard the phrase “Check your privilege.” It means that before participating in a conversation, you have to think about your own experiences and biases and understand that sometimes you aren’t qualified to comment. It’s a near constant process, and even the least advantaged among us have life experiences that mean we enter a conversation in a position of privilege.

The most obvious manifestation of checking one’s privilege is taking a moment to be self-critical and ask whether your positions or ideas come from a place of privilege.

However, I’ve come to understand a second way of checking your privilege, one which has, I think, led to a more productive understanding of how we as Yalies approach poverty and class. This way of checking your privilege relates to how you treat others, and it means cutting others some slack for holding beliefs or making decisions that upset you. There is a certain amount of privilege required to live a “moral” life. For instance, as the child of a feminist single mother, the ideology of feminism comes easily to me. However, that isn’t the case for everyone, and this other means of checking one’s privilege is about recognizing that it might not be quite so easy for people to raised in different circumstances to make the “correct” choice. It means that we have to slow down, make fewer assumptions, make a few more exceptions, and understand that

we can’t win all the time. I’ve learned to do less moralizing, and to understand that even viewpoints I disagree with have some sort of internal logic that’s worth grappling with.

Trying to check my privilege as much as possible has taught me that class affects one’s imaginative horizons in ways that are much more complex than whether or not he or she has money. Decisions made at the individual level certainly contribute to social problems, but if you don’t understand those individual decisions, it’s hard to find solutions.

For example, I understand that one reason Ivy League students go into consulting has to do with the fact that some people from low-income backgrounds are looking for jobs that will allow them to live comfortably. Yet plenty more were raised comfortably and are concerned about whether or not they’ll be able to do the same for their children, or keep up with their friends who’ll be supported by their parents in their 20s. Acknowledging this fact makes the phenomenon of Ivy League graduates flocking to consulting seem understandable to me, even if I still think it may be morally problematic.

Of course, Yalies’ class angst is not the same magnitude as the real challenges faced by people in poverty. But I think it becomes a lot easier to understand poverty when you realize that the choices faced by people in different circumstances are interrelated even if they differ in direness and frequency. I know it seems like I’m making the unintentionally problematic argument that poor people are “just like us.” I’m not. We just too often think of class privilege as an absence of an identity, while poverty is defining and almost indelible.

Class privilege has rules, and understanding those rules helps us figure out when to cut each other some slack.

The best liberal arts educations are supposed to equip you to comprehend complex situations and see life outside of yourself. It’s important to understand that even though Yale doesn’t seem like the real world sometimes, the value systems that both cause and alleviate problems like poverty are alive and well here. Checking your privilege and learning to treat other Yalies with understanding and compassion takes you closer to living those words in life after college, too.

—graphic by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff

have a super weekend.

Write for the YALE HERALD email emma.schindler@yale.edu

On DeStefano’s terms After 20 years in office, mayor will not seek re-election

by Samuel Bendinelli YH Staff

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he Russian Lady, née Wicked Wolf, is a 15,000-plus square foot restaurant and bar in downtown New Haven. Its three floors feature rooms with Soviet-inflected titles—the Vodka Room, the KGB Room—that can accommodate hundreds of people on a given night. On the evening of Tues. Jan. 29, however, nearly everyone inside crammed into a single, unnamed room in the back of the first floor. The previous day, John DeStefano, Jr., the longest serving mayor in the history of the City of New Haven, had informed a number of people that after 20 years in office, he had decided not to seek re-election. He would make an official announcement the following day at the Russian Lady, where in years past he has celebrated a slew of election-night victories.

By 5 p.m., the back room at The Russian Lady had swelled well beyond capacity. Most people, dressed in suits, had come straight from work. The mood was celebratory, and as the crowd continued to grow, many edged their way forward to the podium, a glass of wine or a beer in hand, hoping for a better view. Finally, U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) took the stage. Standing against a giant blue backdrop emblazoned with the slogan “Improving New Haven, Again,” and flanked by bunches of red, white, and blue balloons, she introduced the mayor and spoke glowingly of his legacy: “It’s wide, it’s deep, it’s broad,” she said. “It’s an important legacy for the city.”

DeLauro cited the strides forward taken during Mayor DeStefano’s 10 terms, from improvements in education and housing to the revitalization of downtown. “It’s unimaginable that [New Haven] would be such a vibrant place but for the leadership of John DeStefano,” she said. Then she asked where the Yalies were. A hand near the front of the room shot up at the mention of the University. It belonged to Richard Levin, GRD ‘74. DeStefano, who stood a few paces to DeLauro’s right, bounded off the stage toward Yale’s outgoing president, wrap-

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

ping his arms around him in a tremendous hug. Among the monumental changes that have occurred in the Elm City in the past two decades, few have been as significant as the rekindling of relations between the University and the city. DeLauro called it a “partnership.”

A man in front of me whispered to a friend: “Can you imagine the president of Yale being at this event 20 years ago?”

DESTEFANO BEGAN HIS OWN SPEECH BY reciting the chorus from the song “Closing Time,” by Semisonic: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” He recalled his earliest days as mayor of New Haven in 1994, when a walk down Church Street to City Hall meant a view of shuttered businesses, foreclosed malls, and a bankrupt hotel. Revitalizing downtown became one of the administration’s immediate priorities. The manufacturing positions that had once anchored employment in the city had left en masse, and as joblessness remained persistently high, officials began

of New Haven’s urban renewal craze, Route 34, which was intended to provide enhanced access to downtown New Haven, ultimately had the opposite effect. It split the city along its waistline, separating the downtown from its medical district and Hill neighborhood.

As preparations are being made to clear the highway for new development, DeStefano has worked to court biotech firms to the area to augment New Haven’s budding research and health science industries.

At the same time, DeStefano has thrown his support behind a “jobs pipeline” proposed by the Board of Aldermen at the start of the most recent term. The pipeline will comprise a set of coordinated programs that train and link job-seekers with employers. The project’s developers estimate that the pipeline will place 1,000 workers in the next four years— a figure that would put a significant dent in New Haven’s stubborn unemployment rate.

Officials have worked especially closely with Yale—New Haven’s largest employer—to en-

he was first elected, Yale had just appointed a “new, promising, and then-young president.” DeStefano said that at the time, in 1993, Yale was not a place where anyone growing up in New Haven felt welcome. The 1991 murder of Christian Prince, PC ’93, had deepened the perception held by many Yalies that the city beyond the school’s walls was a dangerous, crime-riddled place, further damaging town-gown relations.

But both Levin and DeStefano quickly came to believe that stronger ties between Yale and New Haven would be mutually beneficial. One of the earliest collaborations in the Levin-DeStefano era was the Yale Homebuyer Program. Started in 1994, the program provides support to University employees to purchase homes in New Haven. DeStefano has also enabled the University to expand, which Levin told the Herald was a favorable move for both parties. “DeStefano understood that a larger and stronger Yale was good for New Haven,” he said, noting that

“Two years ago, with the violence in the city where it was, school reform just getting off the ground, [stepping down] didn’t make sense to me. Now I feel better about both.”

—Mayor John DeStefano Jr. to redirect efforts toward making New Haven more amenable to the modern worker.

The capstone came three years ago when the city’s Downtown Crossing proposal won a federal grant to convert the unfinished Route 34 highway into a stretch of urban boulevards. Begun several decades ago at the peak

sure that many of the participants are able to find work at the University after completing the programs that constitute the pipeline.

Twenty years ago, such a partnership between Yale and New Haven would have been difficult to conceive. From behind the lectern, DeStefano joked that in the same year

Yale has added 4,000 jobs since the beginning of DeStefano’s tenure. Bruce Alexander, Yale’s vice president for New Haven and state affairs and campus development, told the Herald that the once-fraught relationship between Yale and New Haven “has been institutionalized.”

(Samuel Bendinelli /YH Staff)

SEVEN MINUTES INTO HIS SPEECH AT the Russian Lady, DeStefano started touching on why he had decided not to run for an 11th term. “A lot of it had to do with being, frankly, 57,” he said. “I want to do something else, and I want to do it vigorously, and for a period of time.” Just months earlier, however, fundraising records suggest he had been preparing for another year of campaigning. By the end of June, DeStefano had accumulated over $75,000 in contributions.

For many, then, DeStefano’s decision not to run again came as a surprise. Yet there were some who felt that the mayor had subtly telegraphed a desire to call it quits before his official announcement. Levin told the Herald

tober and December], but he wasn’t actively fundraising,” he said.

DeStefano has not revealed whether there was a single event that caused him to change his mind, but the previous election seemed to demonstrate that his traditionally sturdy perch atop city politics was loosening. Even as DeStefano was widely credited for playing a significant role in the city’s rebound after the financial crisis, his margin of victory in the 2011 election—55 to 45 percent—was the narrowest of his career, despite his outspending his opponent 20 to one. In that same election, 15 union-supported candidates faced off against City Hall-backed office seekers in aldermanic contests, and all but one of the union-sup-

noticeably less polished—he had a seasoned politician’s command of what he was saying.

“Two years ago, with the violence in the city where it was, school reform just getting off the ground, [stepping down] didn’t make sense to me,” he said. “Now I feel better about both.”

There is a general agreement that as New Haven’s workforce grows, violence will decrease in turn. “New Haven residents know that if there were more jobs for residents, then we would see much less crime and violence,” Ward 1 Alderwoman Sarah Eidelson, JE ’12, told the Herald in a Sept. 21, 2012 article.

But school reform has always been a longer process. Levin said that as DeStefano departs, the reform movement is still taking root in full.

“I want to do something else, and I want to do it vigorously, and for a period of time.”

—Mayor John DeStefano Jr. that when he announced his own retirement in August, an “expression in [DeStefano’s] eyes” may have tipped his hand. “I had a little intuition,” he said.

Campaign finance disclosure statements show that DeStefano’s re-election committee received no contributions from October through December, and that his campaign actually lost money during that time period; DeStefano had $72,288.88 in his coffers at the close of the reporting period ending on Oct. 28, 2012, but only $68,638.88 by year’s end. Ward 10 Alderman Justin Elicker, FES ’10 SOM ’10, who publicly spoke of the possibility of running for mayor against DeStefano as early as November before formally announcing his candidacy on Thurs., Jan. 24, suggested that the sudden decrease in fundraising conducted by the mayor may have signaled an intention not to run. “I don’t know if he asked for money [between Oc-

ported candidates won.

Given New Haven unions’ impressive showing last election cycle, many believe that were a union-backed candidate to enter the race, he or she would be an immediate contender. The New Haven Independent reported that Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez and State Senator Martin Looney—two favorites of the unions—are considering running. While many other potential candidates were present for DeStefano’s announcement, only two people besides Elicker have officially declared their campaigns: State Representative Gary Holder Winfield, who represents Hamden and New Haven, and Sundiata Keitazulu, a New Haven plumber.

ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH HIS ADDRESS, mayor DeStefano decided to take off his glasses for good. His speech, though, didn’t become

He labeled it a “10-year investment.” Elicker, who in the past couple of days has been publicly advocating a change in the appointment structure of the school board, said that the reform effort still has a ways to go before it is complete. “The mayor’s made some progress, but I think there’s a lot more we can be doing in that area,” he said, adding that while some graduation rates have improved, many positive indicators of successful schools are still not being met.

DeStefano himself admitted that “public schools and public safety” would be the top priorities of his successor, before reminding the audience that he still has a year as mayor of the Elm City. With the primary election not until September, and the general election not until November, DeStefano declared that he is “not going anywhere yet.” One of his most prominent efforts to date in improving

school reform came through partnering with Yale in 2010 to create the so-called “New Haven Promise,” a Yale-funded scholarship that covers full in-state tuition costs at public colleges for students who graduate from New Haven public schools. It is the type of towngown collaboration that was unthinkable before the Levin-DeStefano era, but is regarded as indispensible now.

Even with arguably the two most influential men in the City of New Haven retiring from their posts in the same year, few think that the partnership will miss a beat during the transition period. Levin said that Peter Salovey, GRD ‘86, Yale’s president-elect, is just as devoted to the cause. And Alexander, who through his work redeveloping commercial properties adjacent to the Yale campus has often been at the crux of town-gown negotiations, insisted that the impending turnovers at Yale and City Hall would have little impact on the University’s current relationship with the city. “This is not a relationship that depends on any one or two people,” he said.

As the field of candidates vying to replace DeStefano began to emerge, no one on Tuesday seemed to want to announce a frontrunner or their favorite. DeStefano resisted naming any names himself; instead, he gave a list of attributes he thinks his successor should possess. “Hire a mayor who’s going to make decisions, stand for something, be willing to be held accountable, and get something done for our people,” he said, emphasizing the last phrase. It seemed to be as much a suggestion for the type of mayor voters should elect as it was a series of qualities by which DeStefano himself wishes to be remembered. But few would fault DeStefano for this final indulgence in his last celebration at the Russian Lady—it was his night, as it’s been his town for the past 20 years. Moments later, DeStefano ended his speech to applause. Turning to his right, he kissed his wife, hugged his two sons, and stepped offstage.

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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Rebecca Wolenski/YH Staff

Rebecca Wolenski/YH Staff

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

A cure for the community Sophie Grais, SM ‘14, explores the consequences of Yale-New Haven Hospital’s acquisition of the Hospital of St. Raphael

wo hundred and fifty million dollars. Nine thousand people.

One system.

Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) just got wired. Early on Fri., Feb. 1, the hospital launched its new system of electronic medical records, using the (aptly-named) Epic software platform. Paper-based records will become a thing of the past, as all patient information has been consolidated into the system. It’s been in the works for nearly two years, and now it’s ready to go live.

The switch to Epic—and the synthesis of data required for its installation—is a testament to the changing paradigms of American healthcare. As a nation, we rely on networks small and large, cyber and concrete. Our healthcare industry reflects this idea, as it depends on systems of hospitals and other medical organizations.

In September, New Haven saw the creation of one such partnership when YNHH acquired the Hospital of St. Raphael, a

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small, non-profit Catholic hospital that has been a landmark of healthcare provision in this city for over a hundred years.

The move proved strategic on both ends: it saved St. Raphael’s from impending default and resolved Yale-New Haven’s struggle to accommodate increasing demand for care. On a larger scale, the consolidation of YNHH and St. Raphael’s illustrates the challenges facing healthcare providers across the country. Nationwide, smaller hospitals have sought partnership with larger institutions in the hopes of staying afloat.

The reasons are many, and the vocabulary daunting to a non-expert: a move toward preventative care, the complexity of reimbursements. Buzzwords aside, one thing lies at the heart of the YNHH-St. Raphael’s integration, and that is the New Haven community. While the decision should help more patients receive adequate care—and developments like Epic

will increase efficiency—these changes come with a cost. The takeover of this small, beloved community hospital marks the end of an era for New Haven.

AS THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA) takes effect and reforms wait on the horizon, many hospitals, especially smaller institutions, are unsure of their ability to survive.

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2014, all Americans who earn less than 133 percent of the poverty level will become eligible for Medicaid.

In Connecticut alone, this change will result in a predicted increase of between 50,000 and 60,000 people on Medicaid, according to studies from the Health Insurance Exchange. With more people on Medicaid and no promise of an equal increase in government funding, providers will struggle to cover costs of care. This problem, in conjunction with a shift toward a healthcare system that focuses on preventative care, will prove especially difficult for small, com-

munity hospitals like St. Raphael’s. A system that treats people before they get sick is far more efficient, but necessarily entails fewer hospital beds, focusing instead on providing quality outpatient care and lowering numbers of return visits.

As a result, smaller hospitals are looking for support from larger institutions, including both non-profit and for-profit hospitals. Non-profit hospitals, which are distinct from government-owned hospitals, are organized as non-profit corporations and thus do not pay federal taxes.

For example, Yale-New Haven is non-profit, as are New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Mount Sinai Medical Center. In contrast, for-profit hospitals, such as the Methodist Hospital System in Houston, are owned by investors and seek to profit their shareholders. Depending on the circumstances, a smaller hospital may seek to partner with either a non-profit or forprofit institution.

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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This distinction aside, what happened with YNHH and St. Raphael’s is undoubtedly part of a larger national trend, according to Dr. Alan Kliger, Yale-New Haven Hospital System vice president and chief quality officer, and former chief of staff at St. Raphael’s. “Small and medium-sized hospitals are finding that going it alone is forbidding and will not be possible,” he said. “Mergers like this are happening at an accelerating rate all over the country.”

Forty minutes north of New Haven, in Waterbury, Conn., hospital administrators expressed similar concerns. Waterbury Hospital has pursued a partnership with Vanguard Health systems, a for-profit network with facilities around the country. After the failure of plans for a three-way merger with St. Mary’s, a Catholic hospital in Waterbury, and LHP hospital group, a for-profit network based in Texas, Waterbury Hospital continued its search for opportunities to collaborate. Matt Burghard, director of public and media relations at Waterbury Hospital, reiterated Kliger’s emphasis on the unpredictable effects of healthcare reform. With so many changes impending in the healthcare system, the stability of a partnership appeals to smaller institutions. “We need a partner with a lot of resources to weather whatever uncertainty and hard times might come as a result of trying to comply with new reforms,” said Burghard.

campus. The Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, now based in Convent Station, New Jersey, founded the hospital in 1907.

Named for the archangel who protects the ill and the healing, St. Raphael’s embraced its mission of caring for the poor “and the underserved, to assure that everyone in the community who needed care got care independent of insurance and financial resources,” said Kliger.

One hundred and five years later, the hospital continued to adhere to this mission. Because St. Raphael’s worked so closely with poorer parts of the community, changes in Medicare and Medicaid had profound effects on its capacity to provide care and contributed to many of its financial

Yale School of Medicine and member of the YNHH Board of Trustees. “It didn’t seem right for the community for them to go bankrupt while we built another tower, which would be very expensive.”

So with the interest of the community in mind, YNHH and St. Raphael’s began their plans for the integration of the two hospitals. Yale–New Haven, though, was not the only player at the negotiation table. If YNHH had chosen not to acquire St. Raphael’s, a for-profit organization could have bought the hospital in its stead, a development that likely would have changed New Haven healthcare significantly. Quinn found the idea of a for-profit option especially threatening to the hospital’s community-centric mission.

and I would have bet against it—but all aligned to ultimately come up with this solution.” According to O’Connor, the decision to collaborate with a for-profit institution would have been a mistake. He explained that the decision to integrate with YNHH, thereby keeping control local and familiar: “[Staying local] puts us in a much better position to deal with the challenges, many of which we don’t know, that will be coming down the road in the future.”

St. Raphael’s once struggled to stay afloat in Yale–New Haven’s backyard: with the two hospitals so close to each other, competition was inevitable, friendly as it might have been. O’Connor cited an end

“Small and medium-sized hospitals are finding that going it alone is forbidding and will not be possible.”

—Dr. Alan Kliger, vice president ofYNHHS troubles. “You could sort of see the writing on the wall in terms of our patient mix,” said Kathleen Quinn, deputy director of YNHHS performance management and former director of physician services at St. Raphael’s, of the hospital’s impending bankruptcy. “We had a high Medicare, high Medicaid patient population,” she said. “So you would look at what we were being reimbursed for either a Medicare or Medicaid patient and you knew right away [that] it wasn’t dollar for dollar.

We were not going to make money on these patients.”

If St. Raphael’s was to continue its commitment to service, it couldn’t do it alone.

In 2008, the hospital posted a deficit of $35.6 million; in 2009, St. Raphael’s again landed in the red. Though the hospital did finish in the black in 2010 and 2011, the

“The idea of the big corporate giant coming in and taking control was far more frightening to me, in that it felt like we would lose control over a lot of things in our purview currently,” she said. “With a for-profit, it would clearly be about the dollar, and not about the mission of St. Raphael’s.”

According to Howard Forman, professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health, the consequences of a non-profit acquisition versus those of a for-profit acquisition, cannot be understood generally; rather, he stressed the importance of analyzing specific situations and market needs rather than making assumptions about the nature of non-profit and for-profit institutions. “Individual markets vary considerably,” he said. “There are some for-profit hospitals that are centers

to that competition as a valuable asset of the merger. “We don’t need to be in an arms race anymore,” he said. “This community is small. We don’t need to have multiple robots or imaging systems. We can do it [based on] the demand, versus [using] the mentality that because YNHH got one, St. Raph’s has to get one,” he said. “This will position us in a far better place to ultimately make decisions that are in the best interests of this community and hopefully will reduce costs to patients.”

THE EFFECTS OF THE INTEGRATION ON the community, however, extend far beyond concern for patient care and costs.

Many people also expressed concern about what the future would bring for St.

“You’ll hear it said: no margin, no mission. If you’re not earning some sort of a profit, it’s hard to provide those kinds of services to your community.”

—Kathleen Quinn, deputy director of YNHHS Performance Management In the case of Yale–New Haven, the hospital already has other partners throughout Connecticut; the hospital is part of the Yale–New Haven Hospital System, which includes Bridgeport and Greenwich Hospitals and the Northeast Medical Group.

What used to be the Hospital of Saint Raphael—now simply known as the St. Raphael’s Campus of YNHH—can now be added to the list.

ON THE CORNER OF GEORGE AND Orchard Streets, in New Haven’s Chapel West District, St. Raphael’s stands six blocks from the main facilities of YNHH and the borders of the Yale University

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The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

need for drastic action still remained if the institution was to survive at all. “You’ll hear it said: no margin, no mission,” Quinn said.

“If you’re not earning some sort of a profit, it’s hard to provide those kinds of services to your community.”

Enter Yale–New Haven, a large, nonprofit university hospital just around the corner. Yale–New Haven Hospital, which boasted 966 beds before the acquisition, needed to accommodate growing patient demand. If not for the acquisition of St. Raphael’s 511-bed facility, YNHH would have had to build a $650 million patient care tower. “We were over occupancy, and St. Raphael’s was not able to fill their hospital,” said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of the

of excellence and models of care delivery, and there are for-profit hospitals that do a poor job. Conversely, the same is true of non-profit hospitals.”

Though a for-profit partnership may have offered different advantages, St. Raphael’s and YNHH ultimately chose to go forward with the agreement because of its dedication to preserving a locally based healthcare system. “It’s a New Haven solution to a New Haven problem,” said Chris O’Connor, executive vice president and chief operating officer of YNHH, and former president and CEO of St. Raphael’s. “We landed with YNHH and ultimately I think that the leadership and circumstances here at YNHH aligned—

Raphael’s employees. Conversations revolved around rumors of dramatic numbers of layoffs. Mergers of this sort have become synonymous with downsizing and what Kliger called “the need to “reduce duplicated positions for efficiency.” In cases like that of YNHH and St. Raphael’s, he said, anywhere from five to 10 percent of employees could end up without work. Those displaced often include senior administrators, whose positions would be duplicates. All things considered, the two hospitals managed to keep cuts relatively minimal. “Altogether, with administrators, 200 out of 12,000 people were not employed,” Kliger said. “It came together to a 99 percent [retention rate.]”

Four of the 10 St. Raphael’s senior administrators—including Kliger—took on new roles at YNHH; the others had to find jobs elsewhere Throughout the process, YNHH continually provided information to New Haven’s Board of Alderman through a specifically designated liaison, who was “very accessible” throughout the merger, said Justin Elicker, FES ’10 SOM ’10, and Ward 10 Alderman. Inevitably, though, the need to maintain some confidentiality sparked conversation. Quinn recalled an incident at her daughter’s softball game before the merger had gone through, once the fear of widespread job losses had taken hold. “I heard people in the bleachers having a conversation about Yale taking over St. Raphael’s, and you could sort of pick out what were the rumor pieces: ‘My friend’s cousin’s brother said everyone’s going to lose their jobs.’ I sometimes had to bite my tongue because I didn’t feel like I had a right to speak for the organization,” she said. “But I think there was a lot of misperception in the community about what would happen.”

Quinn explained that both YNHH and St. Raphael’s —as community-oriented institutions—wanted to keep as many employees as possible. “There’s no denying it: people did lose their jobs. But I

he continued. “It is what this community has come to know and expect from St. Raphael’s for over a century.” One of the most important prescriptions of the ERDs concerns reproductive medicine. Doctors at St. Raphael’s do not perform abortions, nor will they dispense contraception. “In practice, patients who request or need those services are directed to places where they can get it,” Kliger said. “It’s not that it’s not discussed.”.

In the years before the integration, the involvement of the Sisters of Charity in daily activity at St. Raphael’s had already begun to decrease. Quinn said that the number of nuns on campus had dwindled over time. Many of the Sisters remained on the Board of the hospital and ran committees, while the regular staff saw to day-to-day management. A few of the nuns even remain on campus, Quinn said.

The Sisters of Charity “had a role and a place right up until the end,” she said.

Before the acquisition, the Sisters sat on the St. Raphael’s Board of Trustees.

Because Saint Raphael’s is no longer a Catholic hospital, the sisters will no longer take part in its governance, with the exception of Sister Rosemary Moynihan, SC, General Superior, now a member of the YNHH Board of Trustees. Though their responsibilities and circumstances have changed, the Sisters who ran St.

YALE UNIVERSITY AND YALE-NEW HAven Hospital not only work closely together, but also hold immense influence in this city. These two institutions stand as the two largest employers in New Haven. Whether as employees, consumers, or residents, members of the New Haven community will undoubtedly feel the consequences of the integration of YNHH and St. Raphael’s. Though the actual acquisition may not affect everyone immediately, its implications are relevant for all. The consolidation of these two hospitals and the elimination of competition between St. Raphael’s and Yale–New Haven moves the New Haven healthcare market closer toward an imbalance. “People are concerned about access to affordable healthcare, and with what is virtually a monopoly over healthcare in New Haven, there is potential for abuse,” Elicker said. “YNHH is now virtually the only healthcare game in town.”

The question of monopoly dominated concerns and discussions before the merger, and its consequences remain to be seen. Forman explained that in a small market like the New Haven, in which there is now “a true monopoly,” this change could lead to “adverse consequences, both in terms of cost and in terms of quality. I think those were very serious considerations when looking at this merger,”

“It’s a New Haven solution to a New Haven problem.”

—Chris O’Connor, executive vice president of YNHHS think what maybe the community wasn’t sensing was that the organizations were trying hard—really hard —to preserve positions,” she said. “And, frankly, had the deal not gone through, there would have been a whole lot more people looking for work.”

Those St. Raphael’s employees who did keep their jobs continue to be represented

by Teamsters Local 443. Though most of YNHH’s employees are not unionized, the hospital preserved these terms when it took over St. Raphael’s “YNHH respected the rights of St. Raphael’s to vote for recognition and to have a collective bargaining with the Teamsters, so they continued to be covered under that agreement,” said O’Connor. The Teamsters could not be reached for comment.

In addition to honoring union agreements, the terms of the acquisition allowed the St. Raphael’s campus to continue its adherence to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) . According to O’Connor, this decision was clear from the moment negotiations began. “There was never a discussion of [changing the ERDs],” O’Connor said. “Each institution was equally committed to its fundamental beliefs, and St. Raphael’s respected those beliefs from YNHH, and YNHH respected those beliefs from St. Raphael’s,”

Raphael’s still remain dedicated to their mission, O’Connor said. “Their ability to do it over the long term was certainly more and more difficult, but their commitment to healthcare hasn’t changed at all.”

The Sisters’ dedication remains apparent in St. Raphael’s longstanding reputation in the New Haven community. “St. Raph’s was a high-touch, friendly, personal place, where people felt very comfortable getting care in a very personal way,” Kliger said. “That’s what many of our patients told us for many years. They felt like this was their family’s hospital.”

St. Raphael’s also served as a community teaching hospital and maintained ties with the Yale School of Medicine. According to Alpern, YSM students would occasionally go to St. Raphael’s to be supervised by doctors.

Now, as part of YNHH, the St. Raphael’s campus has much stronger associations with YSM. Alpern specified that YSM is part of Yale University, whereas YNHH is a separate non-profit institution. “We have an affiliation between the two institutions, but they are separate,” he said. “Because we’re really tied at the hip functionally, either both organizations are successful, or both organizations will fail.”

he said. But Forman also highlighted the need to consider what might have been: if a for-profit institution had acquired St. Raphael’s, the community would have truly lost its small hospital, instead of YNHH’s attempts to preserve much of its reputation and values. “We could have been left with the same situation but not having salvaged the St Raphael’s campus, which has been a very, very important provider of healthcare to a relatively poor part of the community,” Forman said.

For now, just four months after the merger, the community is still adjusting to the integration, and most of the larger changes—the introduction of the Epic software, the consolidation of departments, the installation of more new technology—will happen slowly over the next five years. “Change is hard, and particularly when it meant that there were some tough choices that had to be made,” O’Connor said. “I think there has been enormous progress made. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but the care continues, and I think we’re hitting all of the major elements that we said were important to us as we went into this, and I’m very proud that we will continue to focus on that.”

As YNHH and St. Raphael’s ease into their new roles, community hospitals around the country continue to evaluate

their ability to withstand an uncertain climate of healthcare reform. The unity created by the September acquisition—reinforced by the launch of the Epic software—leaves Kliger sure that the decision to create a single hospital will enable a greater focus on standards of care. In New Haven, I’m confident that patients really benefit, and care will improve,” he said. “I’m not sure it will happen everywhere that way.” A combined hospital can pool resources to maximize efficiency, to use technology most effectively, to create and maintain a well-oiled machine that will cater to patient needs. But as we move in this direction, toward more mechanization, we leave behind the smaller, independent hospitals, many of which have for years acted as community cornerstones and made important contributions to healthcare in this country.

And these changes span far beyond the streets of New Haven: as community hospitals question their ability to stay afloat, their troubles dot the map. In 2010, Manhattan saw St. Vincent’s Hospital close its Greenwich Village doors, leaving New York Downtown Hospital as the only remaining acute care hospital south of 14th Street. O’Connor cites this trend as part of a national movement toward consolidation. “I’d be hard pressed to find any talking head expert that doesn’t believe that’s the direction we’re going in,” he said. “You can see it across the state [of Connecticut]. A state that was largely independent has moved pretty rapidly toward a more systembased discussion, and I think that will continue.” Forty minutes north of New Haven, Hartford HealthCare and the Hospital of Central Connecticut have already joined forces, and Waterbury continues to plan its merger for the future.

As the effects of the Affordable Care Act and other reforms take hold, the history of community hospitals may dissolve into a series of networks and a larger, more mechanized approach to our country’s healthcare.

With this change comes exciting possibilities —the potential to provide more effiecient and more accessible care—but the idea of a hometown hospital may fade into the past.

—graphics by Madeline Butler YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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Step forward for YLS Rodriguez first tenured Hispanic Law Professor

by Lara Sokoloff YH Staff

ale opened its doors to female undergraduates in 1969. In 1970, Anne Coffin Hanson became the first woman to join the Yale faculty. Sylvia Ardyn Boone became the first African American woman to receive tenure at Yale in 1979. And now, in 2013, a woman, Cristina Rodriguez, PC ’95, LAW ’00 will become the first Hispanic tenured professor at the Yale Law School.

Rudy Aragon, LAW ’79, has been working towards this goal since he was a student at YLS. At the time, Aragon, along with his classmate, now-Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, LAW ’79, founded the Latino Asian Native American Law Students’ Association (LANA) to advocate for affirmative action and to encourage professors to address the issue of diversity within the faculty. Since graduating, Aragon has continued to rally YLS, writing letters and meeting with deans and current tenured faculty. As students, Aragon and Sotomayor felt the need to create a multiracial advocacy group because the school required all student organizations to have a minimum of 10 students, and there were not enough Latinos, Asians, or Native Americans to form individual student organizations by specific ethnicity. Aragon said he was unsure whether they were successful in their efforts to promote diversity, especially among the faculty. “Maybe

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there wasn’t a professor out there qualified; I find that hard to believe though,” he said. If somebody had told me that we were going out to recruit the best Hispanics to come to Yale Law School, that would have made me feel a lot better.”

During Aragon and Sotomayor’s time as students, the YLS faculty included one

RODRIGUEZ WAS BORN AND RAISED IN South Texas. Her parents emphasized education throughout her childhood. Rodriguez came to Yale in 1991 and graduated with a degree in history in 1995. She went on to study modern history as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford before returning to Yale in 1998 for her JD.

in fall 2009, when she taught “Immigration Law and Policy,” a 40-person lecture.

Rodriguez is currently a leading scholar on immigration law. She has always been interested in Constitutional and administrative law and the structure of government, and she said she finds immigration law to be the perfect public law path. “You’re engaged in

“There’s still a long way to go until we reach a place where we don’t even think about [diversity].”

—Cristina Rodriguez, PC ‘95, LAW ‘00, Yale Law Professor African American associate professor who was not granted tenure and two female professors, only one of whom was granted tenure. The American Bar Association reported that, in spring 2011, the tenured faculty at the Law School consisted of 50 men, 14 women, and eight professors of minority background.

The data indicates that progress has been made, and Dean of Yale Law School Robert Post, LAW ‘77, maintains that the law school faculty is diverse. But students and Rodriguez herself argue there is still room to diversify: “There’s still a long way to go until we reach a place where we don’t even think about it,” Rodriguez said.

During her second semester at YLS, Rodriguez began to realize she would rather go into academia than practice law. She credits this desire to the intellectual culture of the law school for encouraging students to consider academia over practice. Following graduation, she clerked for the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court before settling at NYU Law School, where she worked for eight years and was granted tenure in 2008. For the past two years, while on leave from NYU, she has been practicing law working for the Office of Legal Counsel in D.C. Part of the Department of Justice, the office advises the executive branch on the legality of its actions. She was also a visiting professor at YLS

Constitutional interpretation, statutory interpretations, and thinking about how government agencies implement the laws. That the type of law that makes up immigration law coincided with my more general interests made it a natural fit,” she said.

Rodriguez will begin at Yale in the coming fall by teaching a small group of roughly 16 first-year law students in addition to lecturing. She settled back into New Haven on Monday, but will spend much of the semester in Toronto, as the Genet Global Visiting Fellow at the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. She said she hopes to use this time to transition from practicing law back into an academic mindset.

Courtesy of Yale Law School

DEAN POST FIRST ANNOUNCED RODRIGUEZ’ appointment during a February 2012 town hall meeting about the school’s hiring process, run entirely by tenured law professors.

Each faculty member reads extensively on any candidate, taking into account research and recommendations. In a two to three hour faculty meeting, the faculty then deliberates until a two-thirds majority is reached. Professor Heather Gerkin, who chaired the faculty committee that offered tenure to Rodriguez, described the process as rigorous and deliberative: “People leave meetings feeling better about their colleagues rather than worse because it’s so genuinely intellectual and deliberative. You really have to admire the way [your colleagues] assess and think about the candidates,” she said. “That’s a gift,.”

The process is rooted in tradition, but recently, students have been clamoring for more of a say. Gerkin said that student input is encouraged and highly valued during the deliberation process, in particular student reviews: “Our students are special. They’re ridiculously smart, and you really have to be on the top of your game to teach them under any circumstance,” she said. “So in some ways, the teaching check is to figure out if the faculty member is good enough to teach our students.” Students, echoing the aims of Aragon and Sotomayor, have been pushing to broaden diversity among the faculty.

Gerkin added that the current student body is more diverse than its faculty, an imbal-

ance that she believes to be common among top-tier law schools. Carel Alé, LAW ’11, who now works at the prestigious law firm Skadden Arps, partook in the Student-Faculty Hiring Committee, an unofficial student group

them. Similarly, Rodriguez said she never felt that there was a lack of role models or mentors, although there were no Hispanic professors and few women. She did, however, agree that maximizing the faculty’s diversity would

versally sought after, making it difficult to create those personal connections. Scott hopes to seek out Rodriguez as a possible mentor and is sure other minority students feel the same.

The further evolution of the law school depends on professors who will not only educate, but also help guide students. that focuses on ways to get students more involved in the hiring process. Currently, the students’ voice is limited to professor evaluations. Alé said that the faculty was open to finding a way to open student input in the hiring process, but she isn’t sure what that role would actually look like yet.

Aragon, who is the executive partner for diversity at White Case, a New Yorkbased law firm, believes that by mentoring younger students, those in senior positions further the development of any institution.

In other words, the further evolution of the law school depends on professors who will not only educate but also help guide students.

Aragon said that the lack of minority professors who could act as possible mentors did not detract from his experience as a student, because he didn’t feel that he needed

enrich minority students’ experiences: “It is significant to reach a point where you have people who represent all different kinds of backgrounds and life experiences,” she said.

“I think it’s meaningful to a lot of students.”

Vivianne Scott, LAW ’14, current president of the Yale Black Law Students Association, agreed that, overall, she has had an excellent experience with the law school’s professors, that she could count the number of professors who have left her dissatisfied on one hand. Yet she also believes that professors of similar race and socio-economic status to her could further enrich her experience. Scott said she has had difficulty finding professors invested in her academic goals and eager to build a personal connection with her.

Furthermore, many of the professors who readily engage with their students are uni-

Alé was able to take Rodriguez’s immigration law class as a student at Yale. According to her, Rodriguez was a dynamic, intelligent, engaging lecturer. She was also wiling to take the time to get to know her students as individuals, not only scholars. Alé was effusive: “I honestly couldn’t say enough wonderful things about her,” she said. “I think it’s an amazing thing that she’s coming to the law school, and I only wish I could be there to take her courses.”

For YLS, this moment is a long time coming. Aragon and Justice Sotomayor began the campaign over 40 years ago. Some in the press have chosen to take this opportunity to criticize the law school for not having appointed a Hispanic professor earlier, and they might be right. Still, Rodriguez’s arrival marks a step forward for the University.

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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CULTURE Tuning in

by Claire Zhang YH Staff

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n our way to the library, we can leave our heavy textbooks in our rooms—e-books do just fine. And a few years ago, we traded our brightly colored iMacs for slick MacBook Airs. Our backpacks are lighter; our internet is faster; and now our obsessive television watching habits that pushed us to the library for some peace and quiet just got a whole lot easier. On Fri., Jan. 25, Tivli, a digital cable streaming service that allows students to stream live TV to any computer on the YaleSecure server, invaded our campus, allowing us to bring live television— the main instrument in any procrastinator’s toolkit—with us to the library as well.

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The idea to bring Tivli to Yale was conceived last summer when YCC President John Gonzalez, ES ’14, was contacted by David Galassi, director of ITS Network Services, about a potential subscription to the nascent television streaming service. Gonzalez saw a need for such a service.

“I was studying for an exam in Bass and there was this football game going on and I wanted to watch the game really badly,” he said. “But I can’t go to the buttery, walk all the way there, sit down and watch it. It’s too much time. It just adds another layer where I’m less inclined to do it.” He thought that if Yale students had some way to access live television programming, he could be more in tune with his interests. If Yale had Tivli, he could have watched the game for a few minutes.

“It would have allowed me to get my little fix,” he said.

But there’s a tradeoff to having access to media any time and place we want. To watch what we want wherever and whenever, we must shove earphones into our ears and glue our eyes to the computer screen in dining halls, butteries, and college courtyards. This new entertainment undoubtedly presents us with the possibility of becoming more isolated. “Sometimes it’s nice to watch TV in bed or on your futon, which is why Tivli is awesome, but the buttery is far more social,” said Kelly Wu, TD ’16.

Some may be concerned about further isolation in a generation seemingly already so fragmented by our new media technology, Yale professor of Humanities and Film Studies Francesco Casetti argues that we should have no fear. According to Casetti, with each new form of media, little of our humanity is lost. The professor argues that throughout history, humans have always taken universalized media and individualized them.

Specifically, he argues that the book was not originally intended to be for an individual to read alone, interiorly. And so, this individualizing that is happening now with laptops and tablets has happened with each new media apparatus. “What is the collective moment now?” asks Casetti. “If movies, if TV, if these kinds of things are no longer collective? Of course, the

answer is, the most collective thing today is the virtual collectivity of Facebook,” Casetti said.

Christine Mi, ES ’15, Herald Staff, said that it was likely that big events, such as the Super Bowl, would still be more popular on a bigger screen, and Gonazlez argues that the convenience of streaming will add to the collective experience of television watching, noting that that Tivli had allowed him to watch “The Bachelor” with his suitemate, who disliked TV, just the other night. “I see a lot of groups who watch movies on their laptops anyway or they watch YouTube videos on their laptops— you know, that’s what my suite does,” he said. “I think laptops are kind of becoming the new TV.” One more pervasive concern, especially with college students, is that of productivity. Tivli presents students with constant entertainment. Live television keeps running, and students can get sucked in for hours. This is the problem that concerns Casetti: “One of the great questions now at stake is not just the idea of having as many things you need. The true question is, there are several budgets at stake, and the economic budget is not the most important. You know what the most important budget is today? It’s the time budget,” said Casetti.

Spending time on one outlet, such as Tivli, means less time spent on other things, such as homework, or other modes of entertainment, like books. It’s a problem that students are aware of, given the majority of statuses about the new service on Facebook cracking jokes such as “RIP Productivity.” Ike Lee, ES ’15, said he had not used the service because he would “fail out of college if he did.”

Many students, however, don’t see the concern. We have already grown up inundated with media. Time budgeting is a skill we would have to deal with anyway, regardless of Tivli. “I feel like it’ll make it easier, as opposed to combing Hulu and other various ways people watch TV online, but I don’t know if most people will radically change their TV habits,” said Jennifer Lu, BK’16.

Gonzalez agreed. “There’s so much media out there with Internet, with streaming TV that already exists with Netflix, with Amazon Video—is online TV that much different?”

—graphic by Christine Mi YH Staff

Beauty and the list

by Anna-Sophie Harling

idden behind the walls of the dining hall, the Saybrook Fellows Lounge gives off an aura of secrecy. When I entered the discreet seminar room at dinner time on Mon, Jan. 27, the staff members of the Rumpus, Yale’s undergraduate tabloid, were swapping crazy tales from their weekends.

But the group of 15 or so staff members had gathered to discuss something more serious. They were there in preparation of the most important, widely read, and frequently talked-about periodical at Yale: Rumpus’s “50 Most Beautiful People” issue.

More commonly known as “50 Most,” every year the publication selects a list of Yale’s 50 most attractive students. Rumpus allows the community to take part in the selection of one of the 50 beauties. Students submit photos to Rumpus’s Facebook page, where they are voted upon by the public—each “like” acts as a vote. At the time of the meeting, the battle for “likes” had intensified to the point that one student had paid for a sponsored Facebook post to push his photo to the top of people’s newsfeeds. After a Rumpus editor described this desperate act to the room, some staffers groaned, and others laughed, but all agreed that contestants should not be not allowed to buy their way into the “50 Most.” When the meeting came to an end and the staff members pushed in their chairs, still laughing, one Rumpus writer quipped, “Some people actually give a fuck about this.”

Although nearly everyone at Yale has heard of the “50 Most,” the vast majority of the student body has no idea how Rumpus crowns its winners. The Facebook competition is the only public part of the selection process, yet it generates no more than four percent of the final list. On the whole, the selection of the other 49 “most beautiful” Yale students begins over winter break, when Rumpus staff members each put together a slideshow featuring the 20 men and women they believe to be among the most attractive at Yale. The editors compile these 30 or so slide shows into an enormous masterlist of “50 Most” candidates, which is then sent back to the staff. After a final round of voting, 48 of Yale’s prettiest are selected as winners. The two remaining slots are left for the winners of the competition held on Rumpus’s Facebook page: one spot is given to the individual with the highest number of votes, the other to the most beautiful student group or sports team.

Like with Academy Award or Nobel Prize winners, every year, there’s an incredibly large amount of secrecy surrounding the Rumpus’s annual list of winners. Even the Rumpus staff is told only about 20 names before the full list is published—only one editor knows all 50.

Editors mentioned that students who are openly eager about wanting a spot on the list are usually not chosen; similarly, those who are given a spot and do not keep it a secret can find their title revoked.

Rumpus staff writer Vince Kennedy, BK ’16, said that the selection process was an eye-opening experience. “I didn’t expect there to be so many attractive

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people all over campus—not just in sororities or your typical attractive-people-places.”

Unlike the list of senior society members that the Rumpus publishes annually, “50 Most” is more than just a compilation of names. What separates it from a typical “hot list” is the comprehensive profiles that accompany each name and picture. Ultimately, the staff believes that the content is more important than the final list.

“A lot of [the winners], in addition to being physically beautiful, have lots of stuff beneath their surfaces,” said John Sununu, SY ‘15, who began writing for the Rumpus during his freshman year. Andrea Villena, SM ’15, a Rumpus graphics editor, agrees.

“It’s not a predictable list of pretty, boring people,” she remarked. On the contrary, Rumpus tries to ensure that the people selected for each year’s issue are as fascinating as they are attractive.

“They don’t try to pick the hottest person at Yale. If the second-hottest person is funnier, they’ll take that person,” said a former member of Rumpus who wished to remain anonymous. “It’s not about ranking beauty.

They just want interesting interviews.”

Philosophically, Rumpus does not believe that there is a direct correlation between being physically attractive and having a compelling personality. “We get lots of drop-dead gorgeous people who turn out to be really boring or awkward,” admitted one staff writer. Rumpus considers this to be part of the beauty behind “50 Most”; the list is intended to give Yale a snapshot of fascinating students who also happen to be really, really ridiculously good-looking. “[50 Most] is much more nuanced than simply cataloging the pretty people,” said Sununu. “Sure, you’re a beautiful person, but what else do you have to offer?”

However high-brow they claim their selection process to be, to be selected, you still need to be extremely-drop-dead-and-almost-objectively-beautiful.

If selected, you are immediately recognized around campus as one of Yale’s prettiest. “You can’t let it get to your head,” said Jen Mulrow, DC ’14. This can be difficult in the weeks following the publication of the list, when the campus is buzzing with talk of that year’s crop of winners. “My grandmother somehow got her hands on the issue,” said Catherine Camp, JE ‘14, with a laugh. “She asked for a copy of the picture and put it on the fridge.”

Florian Koenigsberger, SM ’14, agrees. “The congratulating sentiment is bizarre,” he says. “I’d love to say that it helped me more romantically but I don’t think that’s the case.” Others have had a similar experience.

“Afterwards, people would be like ‘Congratulations’ which made me feel uncomfortable,” said Camp.

As the Rumpus believes that the “50 Most” is taken so seriously because it is much more than a list, they put a great deal of energy into their interviews. An editor who wished to remain anonymous admitted that during the interview process, Rumpus staff members walk

a thin line between being “creepy stalkers” and ardent admirers. And although writers are given free reign over the angle with which they approach their subjects, they insist their intent is never malicious.

“How people are portrayed depends on how they come across during their interview,” Sununu said. He believes that Rumpus continually selects men and women who, in addition to possessing physical beauty, are fascinating, philanthropic individuals. “If you’re actually reading the articles and not just jacking off to the pictures, you get to see what’s beneath the surface,” he said.

At Yale, the opinions regarding “50 Most” vary greatly—some are entertained, some aspire to make the list, and some disdain its vanity. This year, the Facebook contest received an unprecedented amount of attention. This is not only the case for those who have gone to extreme measures in an attempt to garner “likes,” but also from students who believe that the premise is deeply disturbing.

A lot of the hype surrounding the list is self-created.

“I think [Rumpus] laughs at itself,” remarked Koenigsberger, in reference to the online competition. “To anyone who actually submits attractive pictures of themselves—all I can say is, ‘That’s pathetic.’”

While only 10 of the roughly 370 submitted pictures this year were self-nominations, according to Villena, a number of people encouraged others to log onto Facebook and “like” their photo.

Despite the existing sentiment that “50 Most” is a petty, shallow undertaking, the staff sees the selection as a positive addition to campus culture. A Rumpus writer who did not want to be named mentioned that he believes that a lot of the animosity regarding the online contest stems from the simple fact that “people don’t like to see other people getting complimented when they’re not complimented.”

Another staff member felt that such problems arise when students take Rumpus too seriously. She believes that the publication views the list as a fun tradition, and not an attempt to hurt those who are not selected.

“Obviously [the list is] very subjective,” said Kennedy.

In his eyes, “50 Most” is “just one big compliment to beautiful people who deserve to be complemented.”

This year, Rumpus has made an effort to raise the quality of their “50 Most” issue. In response to past complaints regarding poor photography, the publication has commissioned some of Yale’s most talented photographers to shoot this year’s winners. And despite the fact that the written profiles accompanying these pictures often tend toward the absurd, the editors always ensure that they are “somewhat” based on true facts.

“They have to take themselves somewhat seriously, but they also want to give the impression that they don’t care,” said one former member of Rumpus. As one winner remarked, “Pretty objectively, the list doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of anything.”

—graphic by Kai Takahashi The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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REVIEWS Loose-leaf living

by Lucas Sin YH Staff

WIkimedia Commons

Tea is, ultimately, a soothing drink. It heals our dry winter throats; it awakens our mind; it strengthens our immune system. It cleanses our bodies, and it cleanses our minds. In a sip, it clears us of all the junk polluting our thoughts, reconnecting us to the simple pleasures of life. In a way, it reminds us of our humanity. It transports us away from the stress of reality, and indeed, offers itself to us as a refuge from the craziness that is Yale.

That’s what I set out to look for. Every day, a friend and I visited a different tea place in town. At each place, we ordered the breakfast tea and the specialty blend that were recommended. As soon as we sat down, we cradled our mugs to our faces and threw fancy words at each other, painting descriptions of the aroma that hugged our windswept faces. We gave the tea some time to steep, took careful sips, ruminated for a second, and talked about the leaves in front of us.

But perhaps as important as the tea itself is the teashop. The teashop is the altar at which we settle down at the end of our hectic day. It should be snug, calm, and safe. At Koffee, we’re surrounded by graduate students, vintage wall decorations, and the warm buzz of quiet conversation. Green Well’s decoration bleeds organic, and is a luscious place to spend time with friends. At Book Trader, it gets even better, with the afternoon sun shining into the greenhouse, and of course, the smell of yellowing books. Marry that sort of serenity with a well-steeped cup of tea, and balance in the universe is restored.

About half the coffee and tea establishments in New Haven serve tea in tea bags: namely, Atticus, Blue State, Book Trader, Starbucks, and Willoughby’s. Employees flush boiling water into mugs with a dainty tea bag draped over the edge in total disregard of the temperature of the water in relation to the nature of the leaves. The smaller pieces of tea leaves—often referred to as dust—in the bags brew quickly, but at best, they taste thin and undeveloped in comparison to their fully-brewed, loose-leaf counterparts.

Starbucks’ Tazo varieties are particularly offensive. Their basic breakfast teas are bland, and their flavored varieties are far too aggressive. Atticus and Willoughby’s both sell Harney & Sons, which are cleaner, but still lack real character. Book Trader’s Stash teas, on the other hand, sport interesting aromas, such as the Vanilla Nut Crème Tea. Nevertheless, the taste is never quite as velvety as the smell and name promise. Of the bagged-tea shops, perhaps Blue State is champion. Their “Two Leaves and a Bud” breakfast tea, in particular, features a pleasant woody aftertaste. That said, tea bags remain a modern convenience—if you’re looking for really great tea, they’re just not worth the pilgrimage.

Woodland Coffee, buried beside Union League Café, has an impressive selection of loose-leaf teas that the shopkeepers import themselves. Sadly, my tea was served

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in a paper cup instead of a mug, taking away the feeling of settling down on a slow afternoon. The rooibos tea with lemon, a popular blend, had an anise-y aroma that was well developed, given time to steep. The Irish Breakfast they served, though, was perhaps my favorite of all. It smelled crisp and peppery, and it tasted robust and full (once again, given enough time to steep).

I also explored Green Well, another popular alternative for tea near Orange and Crown. The teas at Green Well are all fair-trade, organic, and selected specifically to complement their particular philosophies. While their English Breakfast Tea was not quite as full as Woodland’s, the man at the counter recommended a rare white silver needle from Fujian that was delectable. Its fine, lightly-oxidized leaves gave off a delicate fragrance. Green Well also serves a Blossoms of Health herbal tea that was a delightful blend of lavender, red clover, nettle leaf, and ginkgo, among other things that was delicately balanced and incredibly welcoming. This was the cup we held onto for the longest, just to stick our noses in it.

At the end of the day, though, everything I wanted in tea I found at Jojo’s. The premier teashop on the corner of Park and Chapel feels like a dainty mom-and-pop café, but it boasts much more than toasty lighting and baked sweet treats. Kathy, the amiable Chinese tea expert at Jojo’s, selects, checks, and double-checks all the tea she stocks. Unhappy with the quality of Chinatown teas, and determined to revitalize locals’ health and soul one cup of tea at a time, she dedicated her shop to high quality teas straight from China. Jojo’s selection of loose-leaf teas is perhaps the most extensive in town, ranging from “Lady Orchid Oolong” to “Fujian White Monkey.”

Students know Jojo’s for the shop’s honey ginger lemon tea, which is perfect for the winter. The blend is bright and refreshing but not overwhelming. The spicy ginger finish, in particular, is particularly memorable and frankly, quite brilliant. The base of the drink, too, is up to you, though I recommend the Formosa Oolong. What’s more, tea at Jojo’s comes in a cast iron teapot and a neat little glass tea cup. What more could I ask for?

As Kathy cleaned her station, and I leaned on the counter, she asked me, “What’s your favorite tea?”

“When I was young, I loved chrysanthemum,” I answered.

“That’s my favorite too—with goji berries?”

“Sometimes. But always with honey.”

“I use brown sugar, but okay.”

She sits me down. A few minutes later, she comes over again, with a red teapot.

“Here you go. Brown sugar’s over there.”

Movie: Destiny’s Child

Music: Tegan and Sara

Beyoncé’s been on everyone’s mind lately. From her oh-so revealing GQ cover (damn, post Blue Ivy?), to her maybe-faked, maybe-real inauguration performance, to her impending reunion with Destiny’s Child at Super Bowl XLVII, Beyoncé has assumed the unofficial title of America’s Pop Goddess and Master of Mass Entertainment.

It only seems fitting that amidst this flurry of publicity that Beyoncé would seek to reconnect with her past: cue Love Songs, a compilation showcasing Destiny’s Child’s sweeter, sensual side. It’s a nice return back to the slow R&B stylings of Beyoncé’s earlier career, and above all, it reminds you that the Beyoncé of 2013 is not the Beyoncé of 1999. Before Jay-Z, “Single Ladies,” and even Michelle Williams, there was LaToya, LaTavia, and those horrible denim-ondenim-on-denim outfits.

This compilation, however, is sure to displease a great deal of Destiny’s Child fans. There are no tracks like “Survivor” or “Independent Woman, Pt. 1” or “Bootylicious” to be found on Love Songs.

Instead, the album looks away from later DC songs about being a bad-ass woman who doesn’t take bullshit and turns to songs dealing with more personal and emotional struggles. This side, incidentally, contains some of the best work in the Destiny’s Child saga—yet often the most forgotten. New single “Nuclear” expands upon their previous work but places it squarely in 2013 with sleek production and catchy hooks.

To a degree, Love Songs turns away from what made Destiny’s Child the premiere girl-group of the early-to-mid 2000s. But for any die-hard Destiny’s Child or Beyoncé fan, Love Songs is a must-hear.

If anything, it reveals the Beyoncé Knowles that lives and feels behind the mega-mass-fame of recent years.

—Alex Saeedy YH Staff

Having just released their seventh studio album, perhaps sibling indie-rock duo Tegan and Sara (now at age 32) have used up all their signature angst. The twin sisters’ new album, Heartthrob, demonstrates a distinct stylistic break from their last release in 2009, Sainthood, whose brooding folk guitar riffs and aggressive rock drumming generated a cult following. Heartthrob’s producer, Greg Kurstin, has instead opted for relentless disco drums and synths, injecting some bubblegum-pop into Tegan and Sara’s sound like he did for Kelly Clarkson and P!nk.

The first track on the album, “Closer,” sounds something like an amalgamation of Alphaville, Passion Pit, and the Ting Tings. The trendy pop instrumentation adds energy—it’s catchy. But by the album’s fourth track, the electronica still hasn’t stopped, and listening to Heartthrob starts to feel like being in a hipster Parisian discothèque.

Moodier tracks like “Now I’m All Messed Up” offer lyrics and offbeat rhythms reminiscent of the band’s earlier material, but when laid over disco beats, they start sounding like the slow songs at an ‘80s-themed high school dance.

Tegan and Sara partially redeem this syrupy turn with evocative melodies like those in “Drove Me Wild” and especially “I Was a Fool,” whose harmonization is atypical of current pop. But the lack of real variation and lyricism throughout renders Heartthrob anything but subtle—and with an 18-year career built on an intimate, indie sound, Tegan and Sara are risking being branded as sellouts.

—Helen Rouner

Movie: Hansel and Gretel: Music: Local Natives Witch Hunters in 3D Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters in 3D comes across as a bad bedtime story by an unimaginative babysitter, relentlessly working to lull a restless child into sleep with a nonsensical update of a classic folk tale. Briefly depicting the traditional tale within the first ten minutes, the rest of the movie focuses on imagining the adult lives of Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton Quantum of Solace Bond girl) as witch hunters.

As it turns out, the film’s title is the entire gimmick—Hansel and Gretel casts aside trademarks of the original folk tale, like candy and cannibalistic witches (candy’s only role is to set off Hansel’s inconvenient diabetes). One might forgive the film’s liberal interpretation of the tale if the re-imagining had been well-done—but the acting, plot, and dialogue are all cringe-worthy. (Unnecessary) romantic dialogue is awkwardly written. Renner’s acting and Arterton’s do not redeem the flatness of their scripted characters. The plot throws in seemingly random, incoherent twists that never threaten the steady predictability of the 3-D spectacle. Witches on broomsticks, hot witch-hunters in leather pants, friendly giants, 3-D shootings, and filial angst—Hansel and Gretel offers nothing by giving too much. cusps of alienating their audience, but at least we’re still head-banging to it.

—April Koh YH Staff

With a Jan. 29 release, Local Natives have met the new year with Hummingbird, the follow up to their buzzed-about debut, Local Manor.

The recent release of well-received singles “Breakers” and “Heavy Feet” heightened anticipation for what promised to be the glorious return of the four-man indie rock group. And the resulting album delivers.

Local Natives hail from Los Angeles and boast a mellow yet driving rock sound. (Think Of Monsters and Men with more guitar, Fleet Foxes with more pop, and Vampire Weekend with less pop). From start to finish, the album glows with Local Natives’ signature smooth, beat-driven style.

Furthermore, Hummingbird reveals Local Natives as a band that both tricks you into a night-out state of mind and makes you think: the band plays to both thought and feeling on tracks like the album’s second track, “Heavy Feet,” a bittersweet, fluttering tune describing a breakup and “Colombia,” a slower, soulful song celebrating the life of a band member’s recently passed mother. One of the best tracks, “Bowery,” features haunting vocals from co-singers Taylor Rice and Kelcey Ayer and luscious drumming courtesy of percussionist Matt Frazier.

Hummingbird is a satisfying follow up to a promising debut: it’s an eleven-track power mix of folksy goodness.

—Kristen Lee

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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B ROW N U N I V E R SI T Y, P ROV I DE NC E , R HODE I SL A N D

www.brown.edu/ce/undergrad

yale institute of sacred music presents

L I K E AS THE LUTE music of morley, johnson, danyel, campion, lawes, rosseter, and dowland Saturday, February 2 路 8 pm Marquand Chapel 409 Prospect St., New Haven

james taylor tenor stephen stubbs lute

Free; no tickets required.

Free parking. www.yale.edu/ism part of faculty artist series of yale school of music.

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST Let’s just get it out of the way now.

What do I have to prove to you?

Still shopping...

Take notes for me?

SOMESOM

February Reading responses

We’re just a jealous bitch.

TA

“Settling into a routine”

Flu paranoia

But actually mostly just the flu.

Calling our friends by their DJ names

HerCampus’s list of “18 Celebrity Look-alikes on Yale’s Campus”

The old people lunch rush at Atticus

I know it’s your last supper, but you’re overthinking it.

FellFe

Chipotle Instagrams

Jobs The only thing more upsetting than Rumpus’s 50 Most.

Viva Rubamba!

Applying for them, not applying for them... Getting them, not getting them...

The Yale Herald (Feb. 1, 2013)

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