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This past Saturday, the stage of Morse Recital Hall played host to a conversation instead of a symphony. Three experts in the field of music — a Yale School of Music alumnus, the execu-tive producer of National Pub-lic Radio Music and the project architect of the YouTube Sym-phony Orchestra — spent two hours discussing the oppor-tunities technology creates
for young musicians hoping to advance their careers.
Saturday Seminars such as last weekend’s are a new fea-ture at the Music School this year and part of a larger push by the school’s first-ever coordi-nator of career strategies, Astrid Baumgardner.
The School hired Baumgard-ner to the position last semes-ter after its summer session,
the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, had employed her for two years to help guide stu-dents’ professional plans, festi-val director and associate Music School dean Paul Hawkshaw said.
With her appointment, the Music School established its first ever career strategies o!ce. As major orchestras nation-wide, such as the bankrupt Phil-adelphia Orchestra, face fund-ing challenges, the number of young artists securing positions in traditional ensembles is fall-ing. Instead, musicians today need to take a new approach if they want to succeed in the field. Enter Baumgardner.
“It used to be a lot easier to find jobs as a music gradu-
MORNING SUNNY 31 EVENING SNOW 36
A protest. The Yale chapter of the Student Global Health and AIDS Coalition staged a demonstration on Cross Campus Tuesday afternoon to raise awareness of the federal goverment’s move to cut funding for syringe exchange programs. The students distributed pens that looked like syringes, and one even dressed up as a syringe.
Change in America. The Yale College Democrats posted an album to Facebook Tuesday night featuring pictures of Yalies on Cross Campus holding a whiteboard with their idea of what “change is.” Answers ranged from “campaign finance reform” to “supporting Planned Parenthood” to “Not Mitt.”
One week in. A week after the launch of the class of 2012’s Senior Class Gift, 41 percent of seniors have donated a total of $17,000. The gift fund will hold Trivia Night tonight at Anna Li"ey’s at 8 p.m.
More Ivy hazing. In late January, Dartmouth senior Andrew Lohse wrote an opinion article in the school’s paper describing various disgusting hazing practices among the university’s fraternities. In response to Lohse’s piece, more than 100 Dartmouth professors signed a faculty letter late last week calling on the university’s administration to take a stronger stance on hazing.
More money, more problems? The city released its grand list on Tuesday, revealing 2.7 percent net new growth in taxable property over 2011, according to a press release. Under the current tax rate, that totals $6 million in new tax revenue for the city.
Hold up, trolls. The New Haven Independent announced it would not be publishing reader comments as its editors re-evaluate the website’s role in “convening civic debate” in light of a souring tone on the comment boards, the site’s editor wrote in a piece posted to the site on Tuesday.
Streetcar named New Haven.The New Haven Urban Design League held a meeting last Thursday at the New Haven Free Public Library that drew 50 people, including Ward 6 Alderwoman Dolores Colon, to discuss the proposed streetcar, the New Haven Independent reported Tuesday.
Movers and shakers. The Yale College Council announced three new representatives in a Tuesday email — Leandro Leviste ’15 of Timothy Dwight, Nathan Kohrman ’15 of Saybrook and Allegra Gordon ’14 of Branford.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY1962 Members of the Congress of Racial Equality stage two sit-ins in New Haven to protest the Board of Aldermen’s rejection of the Fair Housing Law.
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M. CLUB RUGBYElis prepare for sevens tournament in Las Vegas and shot at national titlePAGE 14 SPORTS
LOVE WEEKPSYCH PROFESSOR URGES FOCUS ON MARRIAGEPAGE 5 NEWS
EDUCATION REFORMGov. Dannel Malloy prepares to push package in HartfordPAGE 3 CITY
NETWORKINGART PROJECT CREATES ‘RIPPLES’ PAGE 8-9 CULTURE
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 87 · yaledailynews.com
BY JAMES LUSTAFF REPORTER
A new initiative within the New Haven Police Department highlights a recalibra-tion of policing strategy under the leader-ship of Chief Dean Esserman.
For the past month, the Elm City’s top public safety officials have met every Tuesday morning at the NHPD’s Union Avenue headquarters for “CompStat” meetings, a new means for coordinating crime reduction and prevention intro-duced by Esserman, who was appointed to lead the department in October. At the meetings, the managers of each of New Haven’s 10 policing districts report crime trends to the rest of the department and other local, state and federal officials with the goal of identifying patterns and brainstorming crime-fighting solutions. By bringing together law enforcement agencies at multiple levels, along with probation and parole officers, the meet-ings allow the department to proactively police, ensure accountability and track ongoing results, Esserman said.
“[CompStat is] a format of account-ability, an inter-agency effort at tracking patterns of crime, tracking criminals and establishing protocols in crime reduc-tion,” said NHPD spokesman David Hart-man.
Pioneered by William Bratton when he headed the New York City Transit Police Department and then the New York Police Department, CompStat — short for com-parative statistics or computer statis-tics — uses district crime data to devise
NHPD chief ushers in changes
BY TAPLEY STEPHENSONSTAFF REPORTER
Though Yale-NUS is in the midst of recruiting faculty and students, the jointly-run liberal arts col-lege has yet to solidify plans for the upper echelons of its administra-tion.
Current plans for the Yale-NUS administration call for six top o!-cials — the president, three vice presidents and two deans. Since the college will open in less than two years, administrators at Yale and
the National University of Singa-pore have staggered the hiring pro-cess in order to prioritize the most pressing positions. Only three of the six posts have been filled as a result, but even once those remain-ing appointments have been made, University President Richard Levin said the still-to-be-hired president of Yale-NUS will have the power to evaluate and rework the final administrative structure.
“We established what seemed like a sensible administrative structure within the college based
on our experiences,” Levin said. “Of course, once we hire a president, he or she may want to reorganize it.”
Administrators at Yale and NUS launched an international search last summer for the inaugural president of Yale-NUS, which is expected to conclude by the sum-mer. The three vice presidents of Yale-NUS will handle the main aspects of the college — academics, administration and fundraising — but University Vice President and
BY GAVAN GIDEON AND ANTONIA WOODFORDSTAFF REPORTERS
Faculty protested the ongoing University-wide push to centralize administrative services — an effort they say harms departments and their sta" — at last Thursday’s Yale College faculty meeting.
Over the past few years, Yale has
implemented a business model called “Shared Services” to reduce costs and share resources across depart-ments, University President Richard Levin said. During that time, Shared Services has shifted administrative operations from business managers and clerical sta" in individual depart-ments to more general “operations managers” headquartered at Sci-
ence Park. But most professors inter-viewed, some of whom attended last week’s meeting, said they feel admin-istrators are imposing an across-the-board system without first recognizing the needs of individual departments or consulting the faculty.
“You cannot bring a cookie-cutter operation from outside and impose it in an uncouth and brutal manner,” said Dimitri Gutas, a professor in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department.
STREAMLINING OF ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES CONDEMNED AT LAST WEEK’S FACULTY MEETING
The Yale School of Music helps to cultivate the artistic passions of its students. But with the creation of a new career strategies
position, the YSM acknowledges that aspiring musicians may need help attaining careers, too. AKBAR AHMED reports.
C A R E E R D E V E L O P M E N T
Music School hires first career strategist
SEE SHARED SERVICES PAGE 4
SEE ESSERMAN PAGE 4SEE YALE NUS PAGE 6
SEE MUSIC SCHOOL PAGE 6
Board of Governors
President
VP for Academic
A!airs
VP for Develop-
ment
VP for Administration and Advance-
ment
Dean of FacultyDean of StudentsCareer ServicesInternational Expansion
Fundraising responsibilities for Yale-NUS
AdmissionsFinancial AidHuman ResourcesFinance
JAMES LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
NHPD Chief Dean Esserman has implemented changes to the department’s strategy.
Yale-NUS defines admin roles
Shared Services under fire
JAMES LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Astrid Baumgardner became the Yale School of Music’s first career strategies coordinator when she was hired last semester.
Lily KongDoris Sohmen-
Pao
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“Never forget that beneath the rainbows are brownshirts …”
‘REXMOTTRAM08’ ON ‘TRUE LOVE WEEK INTERRUPTED BY “KISS-IN”’
Are you firm-minded and not warmhearted? Not an applauder, but a dissector? An analyzer and not a sympathizer, and more of a judge than a peacemaker? If so, you may be on your way to a sum-mer internship with a multibil-lion-dollar asset management firm. Good luck.
I didn’t know much about Bridgewater when I submitted my application. Dubbed the world’s “largest and indisputably weird-est hedge fund” by New York Magazine, Bridgewater is a quirky place. Its employees function in a wholly horizontal environ-ment and abide by a principle of radical openness. No Bridgewa-ter employee — from a first-year junior associate to C-level career executive — is exempt from a col-league’s criticism.
Because of its wacky corpo-rate culture, the hedge fund has become fodder for writers. In a 2011 feature, The New Yorker described Bridgewater’s CEO and founder Ray Dalio as some-one who “likes to go places and kill things.” But despite the firm’s idiosyncrasies, there’s a method to its madness: In 2010, its main fund made returns on the order of
38 percent, a figure which sounds terribly impressive even if I have no idea what it actually means.
Given the previous sentence, it should come as no surprise that Bridgewater declined my candi-dacy for its summer program. But my inanity, I think, explains only half of my application’s failure. The firm ascribes its success to its unique culture, so it recruits only individuals who would feel at home in its Serengeti-like envi-ronment. All candidates take a Myer-Briggs personality test, which weeds out softies like me.
Two weeks after my rejection (delivered in four sentences, and not even complex ones), another email from Bridgewater appeared in my inbox. It asked me to evalu-ate its recruitment process, since, “As you know, at Bridgewater we consistently use feedback as means for improvement!”
I considered crafting a scath-ing response that would expose my rejection’s injustices: the firm’s blindness to my qualifica-tions, the needless hostility of its interviewers, the insu!ciency of its application process to accu-rately measure my potential as an employee. Radical openness?
Sign me up. None of those indictments,
however, would be true. I am, after all, as qualified to work in finance as the goldfish in Bernie Mado"’s cell, and Jon and Pete, my interviewers, were actually quite pleasant people. But most importantly, Bridgewater knew best whether I’d be happy at their firm.
Collectively, Yalies rank among the brightest, most qualified worker-wannabes in the coun-try. Getting a job, I think, is not so much a measure of our aptness as human beings but a matter of finding a home in the workplace. Qualifications are important, sure: Even the most softhearted hedge fund wouldn’t hire me in its right mind. But fit is impor-tant, too: 40 hours per week (or 84, for the financially inclined) is no small measure of time.
Yet too often in job hunting we tie our success to an overarch-ing ideal of self-worth. Résumés cease to be career placement tools and become highlight reels of our lives. We take interview invita-tions as validations of our whole selves, while rejection emails bear the weight of a marriage proposal
refused. We lose sight of the fact that, really, it’s nothing personal.
Part of the blame belongs to prospective employers. Increas-ingly, firms market themselves not as mere workplaces but as communities of people with hob-bies and personal lives. Annie from McKinsey is an avid runner, while Candy at Morgan Stanley is a veteran dragon boat paddler. These firms hire people whole, and we feel wholly rejected when they toss our résumés into a trash can.
But we’re part of the prob-lem, too. Yalies are a particularly competitive bunch, and nothing delights us more than an accep-tance letter (though an open car-rel at Bass is a close second). For us, life is a parade of applications, and acceptance is an indicator of self-worth.
If we don’t look past that binary system of acceptances and rejections, we’ll miss an impor-tant fact: Bridgewater had it right. In the end, I’m more warm-hearted than firm-minded.
TEO SOARES is a junior in Silliman College. Contact him at [email protected] .
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T T E O S O A R E S
At home in the workplaceUnsurprisingly, my math text-
book was written by an MIT pro-fessor. More surprisingly, the lec-tures I watch to learn the material are taught by that same professor.
The Internet — and the will-ingness of elite universities to broadcast classes on it — can pro-foundly change the college expe-rience and how learning is struc-tured more generally. Besides my math class, another one of my classes has been posted to Open Yale Courses, rendering my phys-ical presence at lecture more of a polite formality than an educa-tional necessity. I’ve even begun listening to two other lectures that I wouldn’t have time to take.
As the News reported (“Open Yale seeks stability,” Jan. 23), the grants that have been fund-ing Open Yale Courses will end next year. Ensuring the continu-ation and expansion of the pro-gram should be an immediate pri-ority for Yale’s administration. A concerted e"ort to attract donors for a program that o"ers anyone anywhere a chance at some part of a Yale education should pro-duce results. Even if the dona-tions don’t add up to much, Yale could fund the program directly. Its benefits to current students — not to mention to prospective students, alumni and the outside world — make it worthwhile.
Securing funding for Open Yale Courses, however, is only the most pressing part of a much larger challenge. Yale and its peer institutions around the world need to think creatively about how Open Yale Courses or the broader collection of col-lege courses available online can enhance and redefine our educa-tional landscape. Knee-jerk reac-tions against online education as a fake or cheap substitute for real learning will only ensure a con-tinued misallocation of resources that could be used for research and education.
To go back to the example of my math course: I get more out of the online MIT lectures than I do out of Yale’s. Part of that is convenience, but, more impor-tantly, I find the MIT lectures to be clearer and better taught. The two courses use similar textbooks written by the same professor and are taught at similar levels of dif-ficulty. Some students may prefer Yale lectures, but the two classes are more similar than they are dif-ferent.
Our current system o"ers stu-dents flexibility — students can find free, online versions of intro-ductory courses o"ered at com-parable di!culty levels at simi-lar institutions. They can decide whether they learn more from physically attending the course or from learning the same material from a professor who happens to teach elsewhere.
Yet the educational value of choosing between two or five
or even 10 versions of the same course isn’t that large, consider-ing that most colleges use simi-lar textbooks to teach their intro-ductory courses. This is espe-cially true of math and science disciplines, in which students must learn a large body of estab-lished material before getting to areas of contention, confu-sion and debate. It is less true for social science or humanities classes, in which disagreement may arise on the first day. But even in the humanities, universi-ties will often o"er only one inev-itably subjective lecture course on Shakespeare, with the under-standing that there already exists a corpus of opinions and schol-arly research to which students should be exposed.
It used to be necessary for pro-fessors at every college to plow through the same introduc-tory materials. Technology has changed that. Instead of wasting resources duplicating each oth-er’s e"orts, why can’t colleges agree to share their large lectures? Colleges could work together to perfect a curriculum for cer-tain classes that cover the same material, allowing the best possi-ble professors to teach introduc-tory lectures — after all, the best person at teaching linear alge-bra might teach at MIT, while the best teacher in another discipline might teach at Yale or Harvard. Having developed a single core that will prove su!cient for most students, individual universities could devote more resources to tutoring support systems. Teach-ing assistants could still grade work and hold section. Professors would still be available for o!ce hours.
Having eliminated redundan-cies, colleges could devote more money, professors and class-rooms to seminars, which truly vary from college to college. Stu-dents wouldn’t worry as much about conflicts in their schedules and could complete courses at a faster or slower pace than is cus-tomary, allowing students who wish to get through prerequisites quickly to do so, while allowing others to take the time they need to learn the material.
Online education, which crit-ics have said alienates students from their education and under-mines institutional character, could have the opposite e"ect. The truly alienating big lec-ture class could be eliminated, replaced by personalized systems of educational support, expanded seminar o"erings and an online collaboration o"ering the best of several colleges. Instead of detracting from the Yale experi-ence, a move toward a more uni-versal university could enhance it.
HARRY LARSON is a sophomore in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact
him at [email protected] .
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T H A R R Y L A R S O N
Don’t let Open Yale Courses close
It’s Sex Week, so it seems a fit-ting time for a crime column to turn to a discussion of sex crimes. “Argh! Isn’t there anywhere we can escape discussions of sex?” you might groan to yourself. I sym-pathize, but nope, sorry, not this week. The least I can do is o"er up a one-liner to ease you into it.
As the comedian Steve Mar-tin once said, “I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.”
Prostitution. It’s the subject of many jokes and for most of us quickly conjures up historical and cultural references: It’s the world’s oldest profession. It’s Julia Rob-erts in “Pretty Woman” or Thomas Jane in “Hung.” It’s Las Vegas.
But that is not the reality of prostitution. The selling and buy-ing of a person’s body should be a relic of a more unjust past. And, Thomas Jane aside, let’s be clear that prostitutes today are over-whelmingly women and thus the thriving of the sex trade consti-tutes a serious obstacle to gender equality. A society that accepts women as just another commod-ity is one that has let the usually healthy forces of capitalism go too far.
Tens of thousands of women sell their bodies every day in this coun-try. Are there call girls who sell themselves willingly and safely? Yes. But they are the exception. Most prostitutes get hooked into
the trade early in life because of domes-tic abuse, drug addic-tion, poverty and despera-tion. Consent loses its mean-ing under such coercive cir-cumstances.
Prostitution is also inher-
ently tied to human tra!cking, even in the United States. Thou-sands of young girls, American and foreign, are sold by tra!ckers to pimps around the country to fulfill the demand created by the buyers of sex. The sex business is built on misery and hardship, and it always has been. As Victor Hugo wrote in 1862, “They say that slavery has disappeared from European civi-lization. That is incorrect. It still exists, but now it weighs only on women, and it is called prostitu-tion.”
Prostitution is illegal practi-cally everywhere in America, even Las Vegas (it’s only legal in rural Nevada). But in the campaign against modern-day slavery, we have somewhat incomprehensibly decided that the best way to fight it is to target the slaves. Thousands of women are arrested for prosti-tution every year. But they are the victims of the sex trade, not its per-petrators. The real criminals — the
pimps and tra!ckers who organize the business and the men who pur-chase sex — are arrested much less frequently. The sex trade goes on, free to find new slaves.
It’s the same story here in New Haven. Police have not arrested a man for buying sex — a “john” — in the past 18 months, but they have arrested several dozen women (and a few men) for selling it. New Haven Police Lieutenant Je" Ho"-man coordinates the department’s antiprostitution e"orts. He told me that about once every other month, o!cers set up a sting to catch street prostitutes, usually arresting roughly four to eight by the time the sting is over. Virtually all the women arrested are addicted to drugs, usually heroin or crack cocaine. Some will be diverted into mandatory drug treatment. Oth-ers, who have already failed treat-ment from a prior arrest, will be headed to jail.
The type of prostitution the NHPD is working against — street-walking — is among the worst. Like outdoor drug dealing, it signals to a neighborhood’s residents and criminals that moral standards have been lost and the police are not in control. Most residents wel-come the stings as a way to reclaim their streets. But the success is usually temporary. As Ho"man noted, the areas plagued by street prostitution — certain parts of the Dwight and Fair Haven neighbor-hoods — have stayed the same for
the past few years. Ho"man said that just as police target drug deal-ers more than drug users, they tar-get prostitutes because they’re the ones selling the illicit product and creating the supply side of the problem.
But if no man were willing to buy sex, supply would have no demand and prostitutes would be forced out of business. If the NHPD redi-rected its stings to ensnare johns, as it has done in the past, and estab-lished a real and lasting deter-rent, streetwalkers could soon find a dwindling number of cus-tomers. That’s what happened in Sweden in 1999 when the country criminalized the buying of sex and decriminalized its selling. Over a decade later, experts estimate that street prostitution has dropped by half and the country has become a much less attractive destination spot for human tra!ckers. Things are as they should be: Victims get help and criminals get jail.
Police can already choose what to aggressively target and what not to, as demonstrated by their toler-ation of johns for far too long. “We reserve the right to do it,” Ho"-man said when asked about tar-geting johns. It is time for police in New Haven and all over America to exercise that right.
COLIN ROSS is a senior in Berkeley College. His column runs on Wednes-
days. Contact him at [email protected] .
The addition of ethnicity, race and migration as Yale’s 78th standalone major has prompted criticism from campus conser-vatives, who claim that the major will only enhance the dangerous brew of politics and academia. In a way, they are correct. The project of ER&M — which questions con-ventional views of nationality and identity — contributes a political perspective that is largely ignored by most thinkers within and with-out the ivory tower.
But ER&M’s critics err when they assert that the major — along with others broadly thought of as area studies — is di"erent in kind from anything else the university o"ers. Indeed, nearly all of Yale’s 79 majors are inherently and inex-tricably linked to a political world-view.
It is curious that global a"airs, Yale’s 77th standalone major, did not elicit claims of politiciza-tion. After all, the major rests on the idea that Americans ought to understand the world through the lens of benevolent develop-ers helping ameliorate the plight of impoverished nations. Its meth-odology, which includes a cap-
stone project where students con-sult on how best to solve problems of economic development and international security, is grounded in the notion that America should solve the world’s major dilemmas.
This idea is hardly objec-tive. Neither are the fundamen-tal beliefs about government on which political science rests or the concepts about the util-ity of markets that are largely accepted throughout the Eco-nomics Department. History — often written by the victorious and the privileged — makes controver-sial claims about the best ways to understand the past.
And while the sciences may be the least political of Yale’s disci-plines — politics, after all, con-cerns itself with humans and society in a way that chemistry does not — we see in the national debates over the beginning of life and origins of humanity that even their claims cannot be divorced from the hyperpolitical world in which Yale exists.
If the political message of eco-nomics is less obvious than that of WGSS, it is only because we are more acculturated to the former.
Politics cannot be divorced from the classroom, and those who assume it can tend to do so in only the cases where the political per-spective has been most marginal-ized from mainstream discourse. Queer theory is no more dogmatic or bias-inducing than the idea that democracy is worth valuing — it merely has fewer adherents. So we should be at least as critical of GLBL 366: “Promoting Democ-racy in Developing Countries” as we are of WGSS 339: “Feminist Fictions.”
Pedagogy is a particularly potent brand of politics because it is so hard to question. A litera-ture professor, in constructing a syllabus, makes a host of politi-cal claims hard for any of her stu-dents to counter, simply because the power dynamics of the class-room dictate that learning takes place within that class’s political framework.
This reality should not scare us. We come to Yale to learn, and learning cannot be extracted from the political environment in which it takes place. By embracing the politics of the classroom — poli-tics that will be there whether we
like it or not — we make it easier to understand the basic worldviews and methodologies that majors exist to organize.
So all courses of study — not just ER&M and global a"airs, but also sociology and English — should be more up-front about the politics behind their academic approaches. Classes like “Intro-ductory Microeconomics” should start by divulging the assumptions behind the course, and only stu-dents who find those claims worth studying should take the class. Professors should think harder and divulge more about how their politics a"ects their syllabi and lectures. That way, we can move beyond the misguided idea that the academy should or even could be a space hermetically sealed from subjectivity and ideology, and we can graduate from Yale with a superior understanding of how politics shapes every aspect of our world.
JOSHUA REVESZ is a junior in Cal-houn College. Contact him at
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T J O S H U A R E V E S Z
No academia is objective
COLIN ROSSGangbuster
Prostitution’s real criminals
PAGE THREE
C O R R E C T I O N S
TUESDAY, FEB. 7The article “Elis sweep weekend at home” misreported the score for the women’s fencing team’s match against Drew University. The score was 26–1, not 21–6.
The headline for the article “Suit alleges bias in elite admissions” referred to a suit alleging racial bias in admissions to elite universities. It is in fact a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education, not a lawsuit.
TODAY’S EVENTSWEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 812:00 PM “Mind-Body Intervention for Adults at High Risk for Type 2 Diabetes.” Kyeongra Yang of the Department of Health and Community Systems at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing will speak. Free, but register in advance. Email [email protected]. Yale School of Nursing (100 Church St. South), Arnstein Conference Room.
4:00 PM “Vessels of Influence: The Formation of the Porcelain Industry in Japan.” The Council on East Asian Studies presents the 13th annual John W. Hall Lecture in Japanese Studies with Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, director of the Sainsbury Institute in Norwich, England. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), auditorium.
4:30 PM “Ottoman Studies: How Dark Is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Co!ee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early Modern Istanbul.” Cemal Kefadar, professor of Turkish studies at Harvard University, will speak. Sponsored by the Hellenic Studies Program and the Çagatay Fund at the Council on Middle East Studies. Hall of Graduate Studies (320 York St.), Room 211.
6:00 PM “The Gun on My Teacher’s Thigh: Theorizing Organizational Adaptation in Wartime.” Attend a workshop with Sarah Parkinson, a postgraduate associate at the University of Chicago, as a part of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence workshop series. Rosenkranz Hall (115 Prospect St.), Room 005.
7:00 PM “Don’t Let There Be Blood: Repealing the Syringe Exchange Ban.” A panel of experts will discuss the politics of syringe exchange with a focus on the recently reinstated ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs. Co-sponsored by the Student Global Health and AIDS Campaign and AIDS Walk New Haven. Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High St.), Room 101.
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 3
“You’d be surprised how di!cult it is relin-quish a cell phone.” ADRIEN BRODY ACTOR
BY JANE DARBY MENTONSTAFF REPORTER
The Yale College Council launched a new initiative last week that allows students with lost or damaged cell phones to borrow phones for up to two weeks.
While the program’s phones enable students to place and receive calls, they are not equipped with texting or Inter-net capabilities. Since the ini-tiative’s announcement Jan. 31, four of the nine phones avail-able have been checked out from the Technology Trouble-shooting Office in Bass Library.
“This program is geared towards making the lives bet-ter and easier for students for whom cell phones are indis-posable,” YCC President Bran-don Levin ‘13 said. “Either you’re stuck without a cell phone for a week, or you get one from the YCC.”
This idea was first proposed along with the YCC’s Net-book Loaner Program, which launched last year, Levin said, but due to budgeting con-straints and an expected higher demand for laptops, the YCC decided to introduce the Net-books first. Following upon the success of the Netbook Loaner program, whose 10 avail-able netbooks are all currently checked out to students, Levin said the YCC chose to also offer cell phones this semes-ter. He added that whether the program expands will depend on the popularity of the pro-gram and the size of next year’s
YCC budget.Patrick Toth ’14, the YCC
member heading the project, said the cell phones provided are Samsung Gusto flip phones on the Verizon network and are connected to Yale’s cor-porate cell phone plan. Each cell phone has its own number, Toth said, and students are not able to transfer their SIM cards or contacts to the temporary phones. Students who dam-age or fail to return the phones will have to pay the cost of the phone, he added.
Six out of 12 students inter-viewed said that they would consider taking advantage of the new program if they lost their phone, but others said that they would rather wait to get their own phone and avoid unnecessary hassle.
Students who said they may use the service said they thought the initiative would benefit students by keeping them connected to their family and friends.
Heshika Deegahawathura ’15 said after losing his phone earlier this year, he recognized the difficulties of not hav-ing a phone. Daniel Tahara ’14 agreed, saying he “feels lost” without his phone.
“Since college is very much a social experience as much as an academic one, I think we’ve sort of conditioned our-selves to feel the need to be connected 24/7,” Tahara said. “Being out of contact for more than a short period literally puts you behind.”
But Jackson McHenry ’15 said he would not feel comfort-able using an unfamiliar phone. Luis Fernando Schachner ’15 added that he did not know any numbers by heart and would not benefit from a phone with-out his contacts.
Other YCC programs intro-duced this year include Blue-book by YCC, Durfee’s $7 meal deals and online grade notifi-cations.
Contact JANE DARBY MENTON at
YCC begins cell phone loan program
BY BEN PRAWDZIKSTAFF REPORTER
Gov. Dannel Malloy has indicated that he plans to make good on his prom-ise to enact education reform — he has announced a series of legislative pro-posals over the past week aimed at improving and expanding schooling opportunities in Connecticut.
Malloy’s proposals, if enacted by the state’s General Assembly convening for its legislative session today, would a!ect students in levels ranging from pre-school to professional job training pro-grams. Last Thursday, Malloy proposed allocating an additional $12 million of the state budget to boost the quality and accessibility preschool education in the state. The next day, the governor announced that he will propose legisla-tion to change the Connecticut Techni-cal High School (CTHSS) system to tailor its curricula to the needs of the state’s employers so that students will be bet-ter prepared for employment upon grad-uation. On Monday, Malloy put forth a legislative proposal to improve low-achieving schools and increase charter and magnate school funding.
“We made a promise to our kids that education will prepare them for college or the workforce,” Malloy said in a Feb. 6 press release. “Transforming our edu-cational system — fixing the schools that are falling short and learning from the ones that are graduating high-achievers — will help us develop the skilled work-force that will strengthen our state and our economy.”
In his preschool proposal, Malloy called for a $4 million “investment” to provide 500 additional spots in the state’s preschool education programs, $3 million to provide professional develop-ment opportunities earlier to students prior to college and $5 million to create a statewide “Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System” (TQRIS) that will allow parents to access information on early childhood school programs.
Connecticut’s lack of such a sys-tem was part of the reason why the state lost out on funding from the fed-
eral grant competition known as Race to the Top in March 2010, according to a Feb. 2 press release from the governor’s o"ce. Race to the Top, started by Presi-dent Barack Obama’s administration in 2009, awards funding to state and local K-12 programs that implement certain education reforms.
“Investing in early childhood is crit-ical to prepare young children to suc-ceed and close the achievement gap,” said Maggie Adair, executive director of the CT Early Childhood Alliance, a Connecticut-based education advo-cacy group. “The governor’s plan dem-onstrates his passion and commitment to building a solid foundation for young children in Connecticut.”
To address state vocational schools, Malloy announced on Friday that he will ask the Department of Education, in collaboration with the Board of Regents, Department of Labor and Department of Economic and Community Develop-ment to lead the process of revamping
CTHSS programming and benchmark student performance standards against national and global models in technical training.
The centerpiece of Malloy’s Mon-day proposal affecting low-achieving schools is a new organization called the “Commissioner’s Network,” a system of supports and interventions designed to improve chronically low-perform-ing schools to be established within the next year. The governor announced on the same day a proposed increase in per-pupil funding for charter schools by $11.1 million, which would bring the per-pupil funding for charter schools from $9,400 to $11,000.
In the Elm City, more than 73 percent of New Haven students enter kindergar-ten with preschool experience, accord-ing to City Hall spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton ’04.
Contact BEN PRAWDZIK at [email protected] .
Gov. to push education reforms
SARAH SULLIVAN/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Gov. Dannel Malloy plans to introduce a package of education reforms in the state legisla-ture’s next session, which begins today.
BY MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSASSTAFF REPORTER
Starting this month, the Yale School of Medicine will have new leaders at the helm of its student government.
Elections for the School of Medicine Student Council took place on Jan. 27., and medical students elected Joel Winer MED ’15, Dipankan Bhattacharya MED ’18, Apoorva Tewari ’11 MED ’15 and Amanda Wallace MED ’15 as president, vice president, trea-surer and communications o"-cer, respectively. The position of communications o"cer is new to the Council this year, and will be instrumental to the Council’s goals of launching a website or a blog, according to current vice president Sasha Gupta MED ’14.
“We’re very excited on the upcoming board,” Gupta said. “They are a group of very capa-ble individuals who will do great things for the school.”
Gupta said the new position of communications o"cer rep-resents the current board’s hope that the new board will “rede-fine” the way the Council inter-faces with students and facili-ates interaction between classes. She added that the Council envi-sions creating a website or blog with a “unified calendar” of social events.
But the position’s actual duties have not yet been offi-cially defined — that will be left open for the new members of the Council to decide, Gupta said.
The Council has relied on vir-tual communications with the student body in the past, with successful results, according to Council members.
Alexander Marzuka MED ’13, one of two Council repre-sentatives of this year’s grad-uating class, said the group relies on emails and surveys to hear students’ voices, and has been pleased with the rate of response. He added that send-ing out surveys allows the Coun-
cil to provide data to School of Medicine administrators when advocating for a new policy. For instance, he said, the Council’s use of this data helped them per-suade administrators to pro-vide iPads to all students at the School, rather than only first-year and second-year students as originally planned.
The Student Council has tra-ditionally been responsible for voicing student concerns to school officials and organiz-ing annual events such as Com-mencement and Second Look Week — a week in April when admitted students are invited to visit the school before they decide whether to attend.
Whitney Sheen MED ’12, co-president of this year’s grad-uating class, said in the past the Council has been involved in voicing students’ concerns about campus safety. After some students were robbed at gun-point, she said, the Council’s work resulted in the Medical School increasing the number of nearby security guards, improv-ing lighting and providing late-night transportation around campus.
As a member of the Student Council for the past four years, Sheen said that one of its goals is “get everyone together and support each other socially,” by organizing events such as Switch Weekend, a social gathering that marks the end of one rotation and the start of another.
Marzuka said one of this year’s achievements was securing Ben Carson ’73 MED ’77, a renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon and Presidential Medal of Free-dom awardee, as this year’s Commencement speaker.
Aside from the Council’s main officers, each class chooses its representatives officials inde-pendently in April.
Contact MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSAS at
Med School Student Council elected
Since college is very much a social experience as much as an academic one, we’ve sort of conditioned ourselves to feel the need to be connected 24/7.
DANIEL TAHARA ’14
We made a promise to our kids that education will prepare them for college or the workforce.
DANNEL MALLOYGovernor, Connecticut
ZEENAT MANSOOR/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Med School’s Student Council elected its new leaders last week.
FROM THE FRONTPAGE 4 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
331Instances of larceny in New Haven in August 2011 According to the NHPD website, there were 331 cases of larceny reported in New Haven for the month of August 2011. There were 460 reported cases in August 2010.
Thursday’s meeting drew roughly 200 faculty members — far more than typically attend — and forced it to relocate from Con-necticut Hall to Linsly-Chittenden. Though Shared Services was only one item on the agenda at the fac-ulty meeting, debate on the issue prompted two consecutive votes to extend the meeting by 30-min-ute intervals. Faculty meetings can only be extended through a vote of approval by at least two-thirds of those in attendance.
After Vice President for Finance and Business Operations Shauna King gave a presentation on the progress of Shared Services, about 20 professors — many of whom are department chairs, direc-tors of undergraduate studies or directors of graduate studies — took turns criticizing the business model. Professors present said fac-ulty expressed their frustrations with the system, such as the unre-sponsiveness of non-departmen-tal business managers and the det-rimental e!ects the reorganization has had on administrative sta!.
The meeting was chaired by Yale College Dean Mary Miller. Levin and Provost Peter Salovey were also in attendance.
Levin said the University has had a Shared Services unit in the sciences for at least a decade. Because administrators found that e!ort to be successful, Levin said they decided to extend the initia-tive across Yale to improve resource allocation.
Salovey deferred comment for this story to King, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday evening.
But even though Shared Services was introduced University-wide a few years ago, professors said the administration has still failed to justify the initiative adequately, which they called ill-suited to indi-vidual departments’ needs.
“[Shared Services] was sup-posed to be streamlining and sim-plifying our lives, and what it’s done is made it much more complicated,” said Benjamin Foster, a professor in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department. “Every-thing takes about two times as long. We resent the down-skilling of departmental administrative per-sonnel … We don’t see how that can be more e"cient or cheaper.”
English professor Jill Campbell said in a Tuesday email that the changes she has seen from Shared Services have not made visible improvements to business man-agement.
Campbell said administra-tors have reduced salaries of some administrative jobs and down-
graded some clerical positions so that they only last 10 months per year. Gutas said the secretarial job of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department’s only sta! member was reduced to a 10-month position beginning last semester, meaning there will no longer be someone to handle administrative duties throughout the summer.
The O"ce of Finance and Busi-ness Operations has not dem-onstrated how this type of reor-ganization reduces costs for the University, Campbell said, espe-cially as Yale has simultane-ously increased spending on non-departmental business administration. She added that plans for improving services such as grant administration and finan-cial transactions have not been clearly explained to faculty mem-bers.
Miller said in a Monday inter-view that she feels there is “a lot of confusion” among faculty about what Shared Services entails.
Professors said their under-standing of the Shared Services model is that it tasks operations managers with overseeing the busi-ness responsibilities of six to eight departments, and they expressed concern that one person could not handle this workload. Faculty members also said they are con-cerned that cuts will be made to clerical positions.
Within the English Depart-ment, 44 graduate students and seven faculty members have signed a petition in support of the depart-ment’s three clerical staff, who have been asked “to justify their jobs as part of an aggressive pro-cess of departmental restructur-ing,” according to the petition. Pre-sented to Salovey on Monday, the petition stated that e!orts to cen-tralize administrative work could result in cuts to sta! and threaten the department’s “institutional autonomy.”
Italian Languages and Litera-tures Department Chair Giuseppe Mazzotta said he feels the Shared Services model is particularly inappropriate for language depart-ments, which rely on departmen-tal sta! with specialized language skills to communicate with profes-sors in foreign countries. While his department has not experienced any cuts thus far, Mazzotta said he would resist potential future changes.
The Classics Department, on the other hand, has experienced restructuring from Shared Ser-vices. The department has had an o!-site business manager since the previous business manager retired in January 2010, department chair Christina Kraus said. She said the switch was not as damaging as she anticipated, but has led to “a cou-ple of strongly negative effects” such as doubling her administra-tive work and making it harder to plan departmental initiatives.
Yale College faculty meetings are held on the first Thursday of every month.
Contact GAVAN GIDEON at [email protected] and
ANTONIA WOODFORD at [email protected] .
coordinated and systematic responses, Hartman said. Esserman served under Bratton at the Transit Police Depart-ment in New York — he was named a member of “Bratton’s Brigade” in 2007 by the magazine Governing — and brought similar strategies to Prov-idence, R.I. when he served as chief of the city’s police department from 2003-’11.
At Tuesday’s meeting, crime data from each of the city’s policing dis-tricts, as well as citywide statistics, were projected in front of a packed fourth-floor meeting room at the NHPD headquarters. The officials in attendance included Yale Police Department Chief Ronnell Higgins, Chairman of the Board of Police Com-missioners Richard Epstein and newly elected Ward 18 Alderman Salvatore DeCola.
To kick off the meeting, the city-wide crime data for 2012 so far was posted: Violent crimes are down 28.7 percent compared to the numbers from this time last year, with a 29.9 percent drop in robberies and assaults falling 16.7 percent. No homicides have been recorded in 2012, while by this time last year, three people had been murdered.
“It is Feb. 7 and New Haven does not have a homicide,” Esserman said. “No other big city in Connecticut can say that.”
After attendees examined the overall crime data, each of the 10 district man-agers discussed last week’s statistics for their respective areas, starting with Lt. Rebecca Sweeney-Burns, who oversees the downtown district. She reported that the walking beats assigned to patrol officers in her district had been received positively by local businesses, a view Esserman echoed, adding that
he had walked a beat downtown for an hour before Tuesday’s meeting.
As the district managers presented data on criminal activity in their respective districts, including an iden-tification of each crime’s perpetra-tor, Esserman discussed his plans to revive the community policing model he helped bring to New Haven as NHPD assistant chief in the early 1990s.
Whenever the department “picks up a pattern [of similar crimes in a specific area], we move quickly,” Esserman said, by moving officers to the neighbor-hood. In addition, officers on the walk-ing beat must “not just walk, but talk,” so that they get to know local business proprietors and other “good people” in their neighborhoods, he said.
The department’s newly strength-ened partnership with the state pro-bation and parole departments was also on display Tuesday. Not only have probation and parole officers begun to move into the NHPD headquarters, but their work has also been integrated into the CompStat meetings. At the meet-ing, Esserman asked about each crim-inal’s probation status after they were
identified. Hartman said this new emphasis on
probation and parole is a result of the city’s concern about recidivism. Mayor John DeStefano Jr. repeatedly stressed last year that around 70 percent of New Haven’s crime comes from either the narcotics trade or the prison re-entry population.
Throughout the meeting, Esserman invited comments from the members of the YPD in attendance — includ-ing Higgins and Assistant Chiefs Ste-ven Woznyk and Michael Patten. When discussing downtown crime issues, Higgins spoke about the recent spate of noise complaints and incidents of public urination by University of New Haven and Quinnipiac students in the area between Toad’s Place and Mory’s.
“Since the YPD and NHPD share some of the same geography, crime problems and interests, it makes sense to coordinate our efforts beginning with communication,” Higgins said. “The CompStat format also brings many nontraditional public and private partners into the process and brings more resources to bear on problem-solving efforts, and, being a weekly meeting, gives opportunities to discuss and analyze problems in a timely fash-ion.”
Higgins added that YPD district managers Lts. Bill Holohan and Joe Vitale work with and communicate directly with their NHPD counterparts, both in and out of the CompStat pro-cess, to identify and solve crime issues by sharing resources and strategies.
CompStat meetings take place at 10 a.m. every Tuesday at the NHPD head-quarters.
Contact JAMES LU at [email protected] .
[CompStat is] a format of accountability, an inter-agency e!ort at tracking patterns of crime, tracking criminals and establishing protocols in crime reduction.
DAVID HARTMANSpokesman, New Haven Police Department
Shifts mark Esserman’s tenure Faculty protest business model
ESSERMAN FROM PAGE 1
SHARED SERVICES FROM PAGE 1
JAMES LU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Since he was appointed in October, NHPD Chief Dean Esserman has brought new initiatives to the department — including weekly meet-ings with law enforcement agencies at multiple levels — as part of a shift toward community policing.
[Shared Services] was supposed to be streamlining and simplifying our lives.
BENJAMIN FOSTERProfessor, Near Eastern Languages and
Civilizations Department
NEWSYALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 5
“Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don’t have sex in the missionary posi-tion, don’t have sex standing up, just don’t do it, okay, promise?” COACH CARR “MEAN GIRLS” CHARACTER
BY LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDOSTAFF REPORTER
Information Technology Ser-vices is testing a new mobile Classesv2 website that allows students to check syllabi and course readings on their smart phones.
Between Jan. 26 through Feb. 3, over 600 students opted to evaluate the alpha version of the site through a survey on Classesv2, said David Hirsch, associate director of Yale’s Cen-ter for Media and Instructional Innovation and project head for ClassesV2 mobile. Depending on student interest, Hirsch said access to the site may be extended to students beyond those testing it. He added that within a few weeks the center will determine whether to further development and offer a beta version to the student body after reviewing data and comments of testers.
“We know that students want more mobile access to Univer-sity services in general,” he said. “What we don’t yet know is which services are most impor-tant. We have not historically had a lot of input from students on development of Classesv2.”
The current alpha mode o!ers access to six tools from Classesv2: the syllabus, announcements, resources, gradebook, sched-ule and signup, Hirsch said. In designing the site, Hirsch said the Center tried to include elements of Classesv2 that students would realistically use on their mobile devices, adding that the mobile view is not built for tasks such as data entry.
“We know the mobile envi-ronment is not the easiest envi-ronment to do complicated transactions,” said Hirsch. “We
are focusing on tools that would share info with students that they might want to access while in transit.”
In an e!ort to be as “inclusive” as possible, the team did not cre-ate individual applications for iPhone, Android and Blackberry, Hirsh said, but instead made the mobile view compatible with all smartphones that have Internet browsing capability.
Owen Barrett ’15, a current user of the alpha version, said he used to load the regular Classesv2 site on his smartphone, but the mobile view makes using the site much easier.
“The mobile version of the site succeeds… by making navigation between classes much easier and small-screen-friendly,” said.
Chinmay Jaju ’15, who did not know about the survey signup, said he thought the new platform for the site was a great improve-ment since students often need to access class information on the way to class.
The center first began devel-oping the mobile view late last fall, Hirsch said.
Contact LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDO at
ITS tests Classesv2 site for smartphonesBY SARAH SWONG
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
W. Brad Wilcox, director of the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, offered stu-dents tips on Tuesday for find-ing successful marriages, which he said are vital to achieving per-sonal happiness.
In a True Love Week event in Linsly-Chittenden Hall, Wilcox told a group of about 15 students Tuesday that marriage is often a more potent contributor to hap-piness than educational attain-ment or economic stability. But he said society often neglects to prepare young adults for court-ship and marriage, leaving them “clueless and confused.”
“Marriage is especially chal-lenging because there are no institutional rules to guide peo-ple through courtship and within marriage,” he said.
Wilcox, who teaches psychol-ogy at the University of Virginia, said commitment to both a part-ner and the institution of mar-riage itself leads to security, fidel-ity and “sexual bliss.”
In searching for a partner, Wil-cox recommended that people avoid “stonewallers” who retreat from conflict and “naggers” who are too quick to criticize. He also suggested that young people not rely on “the physical and roman-tic rush,” which “will not last and will not sustain through the chal-lenges of marriage.” Instead, cou-ples should seek “homogamy,” or shared interests and values.
“You want to think about the one you want to spend a long afternoon with when you’re old and wrinkly,” he said.
He advised students against cohabitation before marriage, since he said it is linked to a higher risk of divorce and con-flict, he said. Cohabiting partners often are “not on the same page” because they live together with different motives, he said, and
also develop an “easy come, easy go” attitude that undermines commitment. Other couples view cohabitation as a premarital test drive, but this “consumer mind-set” of constant evaluation hurts marriage, he said.
He said casual sex with mul-tiple partners is associated with higher risk of depression for women, adding that depression may make women more likely to seek multiple partners.
Sex in marriage, as opposed to casual sex, is most likely to lead to sexual satisfaction and is more likely to be “emotionally safe,” he said.
“What happens outside the bedroom influences what hap-pens inside the bedroom,” he said.
Delaying marriage may also lead to unhappiness, he said. Studies show the happiest mar-riages occur between ages 23 and 28 because adults have matured enough without being too set in their ways, he said, and marrying earlier also reduces the chance of moving between relationships, preventing cynicism that may hurt the marriage.
Once people find a partner, he said generosity, commitment, shared faith and quality time are the top predictors for marital happiness, Wilcox said.
Still, while Wilcox said mar-riage is key for happiness, he said relying on one’s spouse for hap-piness burdens marriage with high expectations. Believing in an external source “larger than oneself,” such as God, reduces the pressure on the relationship, he said.
Grace Hirshorn ’15, who attended the talk, said she thought Wilcox o!ered “practi-cal tips” that can be applied to all types of relationships.
“So many of us will end up married, so it’s important for us to keep these things in the back of our minds,” she said.
But Travis Heine ’14 said the presentation relied too heavily on statistics and “lacked rhetorical force.”
True Love Week, sponsored by Undergraduates for a Better Yale College, is holding seven events
between Feb. 5-14 as an alterna-tive to Sex Week 2012, which is running from Feb. 4-14.
Contact SARAH SWONG at [email protected] .
Love Week speaker champions marriage
MARIA ZEPEDA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
W. Brad Wilcox, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, urged students to recognize the importance of marriage in living a happy life.
We have not historically had a lot of input from students on development of Classesv2.
DAVID HIRSCHAssociate director, Yale Center for Media
and Instructional Innovation
FROM THE FRONTPAGE 6 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
“Analyzing what you haven’t got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.” ORISON SWETT MARDEN AMERICAN WRITER
ate,” said Baumgardner, who has consulted for arts organiza-tions like the American Com-posers Orchestra and The Juil-liard School. “Now, you have to be more entrepreneurial, more in charge of your job search.”
Music School Dean Robert Blocker said in an email to the News that the school had wanted to initiate a career strategies pro-gram for some time, but that this only became possible with the reworking of the 2011-’12 bud-get to include a part-time faculty position.
Seven months in, as orches-tra staffs continue to dwindle, Baumgardner remains focused on helping the Music School’s graduates design contemporary, unique ways to approach their futures.
‘CREATIVE, AUTHENTIC SELVES’
Establishing a stable career in today’s music world requires evaluating oneself honestly, fac-ulty and students at the school said. Guiding students toward greater self-knowledge is central to Baumgardner’s approach.
“She helps me re-evaluate where I am in my educational pursuit … and where I want to go with my career,” Alan Pawlowicz MUS ’12 said.
He added that meeting with Baumgardner during her weekly office hours has helped him develop both long-term and short-term visions for his career, leaving him more certain of his trajectory than before.
“I help people build on their successes — that’s what I’m good at,” Baumgardner said.
Baumgardner, now in her late 50’s, practiced as a litigator for over 20 years before realizing law was not her passion. While
working for French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel, Baumgardner, who majored in French at Mount Holyoke College, said she became interested in the arts, especially music. In 2000, she left law alto-gether and became deputy exec-utive director of the New York branch of Alliance Francaise, a global organization that promotes French culture.
But, in 2008, Baumgardner said, the company downsized, and she started her own business as both a life coach and an inde-pendent consultant to arts non-profits.
Baumgardner has also chaired the board of the American Com-posers’ Orchestra, an orches-tra dedicated to encouraging emerging composers, since 2002. Michael Geller, chief executive of the orchestra, said in an email that her background in various professional fields, ranging from career coaching to legal practice, gives her a “unique” set of expe-riences to share with artists seek-ing to establish themselves.
Blocker said the Music School’s decision to hire Baumgardner stemmed in part from her under-standing of the current music cli-mate.
In today’s economy, Baum-gardner said, she sees that tal-ented, young musicians face greater difficulties in acquiring traditional orchestra jobs, as the number of open spots has fallen while the ranks of aspiring musi-cians auditioning have swelled. Accordingly, she said, she aims to prepare students for a di!erent kind of market by encouraging them to “tap into their creative, authentic selves.”
Baumgardner has been a “tre-mendous force” in helping Paw-lowicz define his identity as a musician, he said, including his priorities and his problem areas.
Hawkshaw said that he was
impressed that Baumgardner goes beyond just preparation for the musical profession to give students individualized perspec-tives on their place in the modern music scene.
“She’s asking people to think about where they see themselves in the world and where their careers are going and what they have to contribute,” he said.
Baumgardner has helped stu-dents see that they can define success in their own ways, Arash Noori MUS ’12 said. This spring, Noori enrolled in Baumgardner’s course “Creating Financially Sustainable Careers in the Arts,” in which she discusses tactics to help working musicians and hosts guests such as successful Music School alumni.
“She made me think about the fact that success is so rela-tive with something like music,” Noori explained. “It’s not just about playing 200 concerts a year — maybe you want to play a smaller number, have a balanced life, teach and arrange.”
EQUIPPED WITH NEW SKILLSBut a strong contemporary
skill set demands more than an understanding of oneself — another part of Baumgard-ner’s role involves helping Music School students learn how to build strong connections with others.
Baumgardner said that over the course of her career she has observed changes in the field that require corresponding change in how young talents prepare for careers. The market crash was a turning point, she said.
“It hit home that things were really changing,” she added.
Noori said he and his peers have come to see entrepreneur-ship, strategizing and seeking guidance as critical parts of their professional training.
“Just being very good at your instrument is not really a guaran-tee [for a] career,” he added.
The typical music school grad-uate today, Baumgardner said, “does more than one thing.” Many individuals, she contin-ued, freelance instead of having one steady employer, playing for between four and five ensembles and teaching on the side.
Baumgardner emphasized that this change is not necessarily negative.
“There are way more places to perform music, with young musi-cians and composers looking for di!erent venues,” Baumgardner said, adding that the mushroom-ing of new media channels makes it easier to have new music heard.
Noori said that Baumgard-ner forces students to think in a structured, goal-oriented way. He explained that Baumgard-ner tells students to outline small goals each semester that will build toward their larger ambi-tions. She describes the ideal short-term target as SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound.
“She forces you to have a plan staring at you,” he said.
Pawlowicz said that these skills are a necessary supplement to a Music School education.
“[Baumgardner] teaches us simple skills that one, as a musi-cian, needs, but that we don’t all
have, like learning how to net-work, create a newsletter,” Paw-lowicz said. “It’s all the skills that we’re not actually taught in our other courses, so she’s filling in a gap in the educational system.”
Blocker said the new career strategies program will make Music School students more pre-pared for auditions, interviews and teaching, as well as better at presenting themselves via digital media.
Under Baumgardner, the o"ce has introduced the Saturday Seminar program, a new alumni mentoring system, an opportu-nity for each student to develop a digital portfolio on the School’s website and a webpage that serves as a job-search hub.
Similarly, Blocker said, peer institutions in the music world are also making efforts toward developing structured career placement o"ces.
Baumgardner said that she presents the changes in the music industry as an opportunity rather than a problem.
She recalled one Music School student she met last summer at the Norfolk festival who was unsure about the direction in which to take his career. After speaking with him about his experiences with fellow musi-cians, she said, she helped him realize that he had a knack for connecting with people. Now, she said, he has a newfound sense of confidence and awareness that the jobs that will suit him best are those in which he can work within a group.
“Our students are super-tal-ented, but some don’t know why they’re great,” Baumgardner said. “I help them discover their brand, what makes them unique.”
Contact AKBAR AHMED at [email protected] .
Secretary Linda Lorimer said the Yale-NUS president will also have the power to hire additional personnel that report directly to him or her.
Though administrators have outlined the six main positions within the Yale-NUS admin-istration, the president, vice president for development, and dean of students have yet to be hired. Yale-NUS has already appointed Doris Sohmen-Pao as vice president for administra-tion and advancement, and Lily Kong as the school’s acting vice president for academic affairs. Sohmen-Pao formerly served as a trustee at Princeton University and director of Singapore Man-agement University’s MBA pro-gram, while Kong is the current vice president for university and global relations at NUS.
Yale-NUS has staggered its administrative appoint-ments to prioritize the imme-diate needs of the college, such as faculty and student recruit-ment, Lorimer said. As such, Levin said Yale-NUS first hired Charles Bailyn as dean of faculty in 2010 to jump-start faculty and student recruitment, and then brought on Kong last summer and Sohmen-Pao in November.
“Imagine starting this up,” Lorimer said. “We’re in the midst of hiring faculty, so you have to have someone who can do that, then you need a vice president for administration since you’re actually beginning to recruit students and put together a bud-get. Fundraising for endowments serves you well in the future and
has a very important function, but the other functions have to be started right away, and actu-ally are underway.”
The search for a dean of stu-dents is ongoing, but the hunt for a vice president for develop-ment will not begin until Yale-NUS selects a president. Lorimer said administrators expect the president and vice president for development to work together closely, and felt the development appointment was less pressing than the other two vice presi-dencies.
Though Lorimer said she expects most administra-tive appointments to be long-term, Bailyn has already served for three years and is expected to step down by the end of the 2013-’14 academic year. Kong is only serving as acting vice pres-ident for academic a!airs, and Levin said it will be up to the Yale-NUS president to deter-mine when Kong’s successor will be found.
Lorimer said Kong will have duties similar to those of a pro-vost, overseeing academic a!airs
and the offices of the dean of students, dean of faculty, inter-national experience and career counseling. The college’s non-academic affairs — other than fundraising — will be overseen by Sohmen-Pao, who will supervise the o"ces of human resources, finance, admissions and finan-cial aid, Lorimer said. Though NUS President Tan Chorh Chuan is currently handling Yale-NUS fundraising efforts, the vice president for development will eventually assume that respon-sibility, Lorimer added.
Ronald Ehrenberg, direc-tor of the Cornell Higher Edu-cation Research Institute, said plans for the relatively small Yale-NUS administrative struc-ture are reasonable and avoid the “title inflation” found at many universities and corporations today. While academics, admin-istration and fundraising could all theoretically fall under dean-ships, Ehrenberg said he thought the vice president titles would help establish the importance of those administrators in the new college — especially when solic-iting donations.
Ehrenberg added that it is log-ical for the Yale-NUS president to have the final say in determin-ing the college’s administrative structure.
“A business plan is merely a plan and if a new leader wants to change it, that makes sense,” he said.
Yale-NUS is scheduled to open in fall 2013.
Contact TAPLEY STEPHENSON at [email protected] .
C A R E E R S T R A T E G I E S A T T H E YA L E
S C H O O L O F M U S I C
CAREER COACHING APPOINTMENTSStudents that want advice catered to their personal needs and ambitions are encouraged to make appointments with Astrid Baumgardner to discuss their goals and skills.
DIGITAL PORTFOLIOSIn order to promote their work and qualifications, Music School students and alumni can set up personal portfolio websites tied to the Music School’s website. Quality control and underscoring one’s connection to the Music School are draws of this program.
ONLINE JOB SEARCHLogging in through the Music School website, students now have access to a range of resources including a job bank, career materials and other forms of guidance.
SATURDAY SEMINARSArts professionals come to the Music School on specific Saturdays throughout the school year to discuss issues facing the modern musician.
Baumgardner seeks to aid ‘self-discovery’
Admin structure detailed
Fill this space [email protected]
We established what seemed like a sensible administrative structure within the college based on our experiences.
RICHARD LEVINUniversity President
MUSIC SCHOOL FROM PAGE 1
YALE NUS FROM PAGE 1
Our students are super-talented. … I help them discover their brand, what makes them unique.
ASTRID BAUMGARDNERCoordinator of Career Strategies, Yale
School of Music
BULLETIN BOARDYALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 7
A slight chance of snow showers after 4pm. Mostly cloudy with a high near 38.
High of 43, low of 26.
High of 46, low of 29.
TODAY’S FORECAST TOMORROW FRIDAY
CROSSWORDLos Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis
FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 8, 2012
ACROSS1 Organic fuel5 Beggar’s returns9 Out-and-out
14 Soprano Gluck15 Tree nursery?16 Winnebagos’ kin17 *Vaudeville
headliner19 Actress Kelly20 Anaheim team, to
fans21 Splotch23 Fishing gear24 *Count Basie’s
theme song28 Garment border29 Michael of
“Caddyshack”32 Marbles
competition36 Get out in the
open38 Singsong
syllables39 *Too-small
quantity43 Open mic
performer, often44 Bruins legend45 “My love __ a
fever, longingstill”:Shakespeare
46 Deeply rooted48 Gandalf portrayer
McKellen50 *1959 Monroe
classic57 “Go team!”59 Well out of range60 It may be
captioned61 Hoover rival63 What many
sports cars lack,and, in a way,what the ends ofthe starredanswers are
66 Bench clearer67 Pitcher Pettitte
with a record 19post-season wins
68 Out of the cage69 Less hardy-
looking70 Early Iranian71 “America’s Next
Top Model” hostBanks
DOWN1 Logical start?
2 Online mortgagebroker
3 More than enough4 It’s not done5 “State of Wonder”
novelist Patchett6 Country expanse7 “AFuller Spectrum
of News” network8 Bit of rhubarb9 Middle of
nowhere,metaphorically
10 Hugs,symbolically
11 Cult classic of1990s TV
12 It passes betweenSwiss banks
13 Would-be OneL’s hurdle
18 Author Sholem22 Eye of el tigre25 Tilt26 Fail to mention27 Overseas thanks30 Lab coat speck?31 Chow32 Year Elizabeth I
delivered her“Golden Speech”
33 Caddie’ssuggestion
34 Jaw-droppingnews
35 Veep beforeGerald
37 Letter after pi40 Motel
convenience41 “Gymnopédies”
composer Satie42 Scot’s bluff47 Dict. offering49 Small bites51 NFLer until 199452 Castle with many
steps?
53 Museumconcern
54 White with age55 Weasel-like
swimmer56 Where captains
go57 Frolic58 Field of expertise62 GPA reducer,
usually64 Put in65 Deli choice
Tuesday’s Puzzle SolvedBy Jack McInturff 2/8/12
(c)2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 2/8/12
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DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
MIDWESTERN NERD AT YALE BY ERAN MOORE REA
SCIENCE HILL BY SPENCER KATZ
THAT MONKEY TUNE BY MICHAEL KANDALAFT
1 6 74 6 8 37
5 45 1 4 39 1 5 2
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8 9 5 2
SUDOKU HARD
ON CAMPUSTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 94:30 PM “Life After Yale: The Modern Asian-American.” Do you ever wonder how your cultural interests and current activism might translate into a career someday? Interested in social justice, civil rights or public sector work? Come to this conversation with civil rights attorney Chiraag Bains ’03 and and judge Ramey Ko ’02 to hear two alumni’s thoughts about ethnicity, law and contemporary civil rights. Linsly-Chittenden Hall (63 High St.), room 101.
6:30 PM “Prometheus: Poem of Fire.” Documentary and concert featuring the music of Alexander Scriabin and the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Presented in conjunction with the “No Boundaries” series. Free to the general public. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), auditorium.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1012:00 PM “Autism, Aspergers, and a New Clinical Definition: A Discussion with Dr. James McPartland.” McPartland, assistant professor and associate director of the Developmental Electrophysiology Laboratory at the Yale Child Study Center, will speak to the Public Health Coalition over lunch. Branford College (74 High St.), small dining room.
6:o0 PM The 10th Annual Southeast Asia Spring Festival. Celebrate the cultures of Southeast Asia with dance, music and magic performances and food. Luce Hall (34 Hillhouse Ave.), common room.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1111:00 AM World Micro-Market Valentine’s Day Sale. Stop by between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. to buy jewelry, chocolate, stu!ed animals, purses, and more! World Micro-Market sells handicrafts from disadvantaged artisans in developing countries. Dwight Hall (67 High St.), chapel.
SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINEyaledailynews.com/events/submit
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CLASSICAL MUSIC 24 Hours a Day. 98.3 FM, and on the web at WMNR.org“Pledges accepted: 1-800-345-1812”
ARTS & CULTURETHIS WEEK
IN THE ARTS
THURS. FEB. 9 - SAT. FEB. 11JULIUS CAESAR A Yale School of Drama production of Shakespeare’s tale of Roman tragedy, directed by Ethan Heard DRA ’13.
Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St.
5:30 - 8:30 P.M. THURS. FEB. 9NEW MUSIC FOR THE CELLO A concert of student-composed inspired by the architecture of the Yale University Art Gallery, where the pieces will be performed.
Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St.
THURS. FEB. 9 - FEB. 18HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH A senior project for Brennan Caldwell ’12 produced collaboration with Sex Week at Yale, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” gives the stage to Hedwig Schmidt (Caldwell), a German transsexual with a botched sex-change. Yael Zinkow ’12 co-stars.
Calhoun Cabaret, Calhoun College
7 - 9:15 P.M. FRI. FEB. 10THE SWORD AND THE SCREEN The fourth in a series of screenings of Japanese samurai films from the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.
7 P.M. TUES. FEB. 14SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE For lovebirds looking for a date on the cheap (and those without a special someone in their life): a screening of John Madden’s now-classic 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes.
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.
FEB. 6 - MAY. 4MASSIMO SCOLARI: THE REPRESENTATION OF ARCHITECTURE Massimo Scolari, a former professor at the Yale School of Architecture, contributes his architectural drawings to a new exhibit at Rudolph Hall.
Rudolph Hall, 2nd Floor Gallery, 180 York St.
JAN. 23 - JUN. 29SHAKESPEARE AT YALE REP A collection of photographs and posters from the archives of the Yale Repertory Theater, the exhibit traces Shakespeare’s presence at the Rep since its foundation.
Whitney Humanities Center, Gallery, 53 Wall St.
JAN. 31 - MAR. 31MALCOLM MORLEY IN A NUTSHELL: THE FINE ART OF PAINTING 1954-2012 A show at the Yale School of Art featuring the work of British photorealist artist Malcolm Morley.
32 Edgewood Ave.
FEB. 2 - MAY 27MAKING HISTORY: ANTIQUARIES IN BRITAIN Drawing on its own collection and materials borrowed from the Society of Antiquaries of London, a new exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art celebrates Britain’s material history.
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St.
BY LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDOSTAFF REPORTER
A new partnership between the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and online fundrais-ing platform Kickstarter aims to broaden support for New Haven artists beyond those who know them personally.
Last week, the Arts Coun-cil launched its curator page on Kickstarter, expanding visibil-ity of New Haven artists in need of funding. The Arts Council’s Executive Director Cynthia Clair said that while she had known about Kickstarter for years, the Arts Council decided to launch the partnership after discovering last month that the city of Port-land, Ore. uses the site to pro-mote local artists.
Through Kickstarter, art-ists pitch their current projects online and put up a fundraising goal. Visitors can elect to pledge a dollar amount, and if the art-ist’s goal is met within a set time frame, the donation becomes a reality. Other groups that host similar pages on Kickstarter include the Sundance Film Festi-val, YouTube, the New Museum in New York City and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Clair said that a partnership with Kickstarter appealed to the Arts Council because it is a tried-and-true platform. Rather than reinventing the wheel for artis-tic promotion, she said, the Arts Council chose to use a known brand to support New Haven’s creative community. As the part-nership has only been live for a week, she added that it is di!-cult to measure the success of the Arts Council’s affiliation with Kickstarter.
Pantochino Productions, a non-profit theater group based in New Haven, raised about $14,000 through Kickstarter
before becoming one of the artis-tic groups featured on the Arts Council’s curator page, Panto-chino producer and director Bert Bernardi said in an email. The sum was enough to cover the expenses of the group’s first pro-duction, “Cinderella Skeleton: The Musical,” Bernardi said.
“[It was] amazing to [reach] people who we didn’t know at all — who found our Kick-starter page, watched our video and found it interesting enough to support,” Bernardi said. He added that the production com-pany supplemented the publicity from Kickstarter with constant
messages posted on Facebook and Twitter in order to maintain the project’s momentum.
New Haven filmmaker Gor-man Bechard said in an email that he has raised just under $100,000 through Kickstarter for his documentary film on the 80s band “The Replacements” titled “Color Me Obsessed.” He began fundraising in 2009, but said that searching for support took longer than the actual pro-duction of his project. While he is not a!liated with the Arts Coun-cil’s curator page on Kickstart, Bechard said the found Kick-starter an effective fundraising
tool as an independent artist.“[Kickstarter is] a dream come
true for the artistic community,” Bechard said. “It gives you total freedom. And the buzz begins long before your film is finished.”
The Arts Council’s curator page on Kickstarter currently features four artistic groups including Elm City Dance Col-lective, Pantochino Productions, musician Dave Ramos and the 9Realms fantasy film series.
Contact LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDO at [email protected] .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 9PAGE 8 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
“An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down … it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.” MARIA CALLAS OPERA SINGER
BY ROBERT PECKSTAFF REPORTER
In the four months since its opening, an artis-tic initiative spreading throughout a bare Chapel Street building has grown to connect dozens of regional artists.
Since October 2011, the “Ripple E"ect” art proj-ect housed at 756 Chapel St. has woven a web of creative interaction between artists in the Greater New Haven area. The project, which will continue until March, allows artists to “tag” and “poke” one another through works in a diverse range of media using the building’s three stories as a can-vas. When one artist references another in his or her work, the tagger sends a letter inviting the ref-erenced artists to add to the project, continuing an ever-growing chain of “ripples.” To date, 40 artists have contributed.
The project is the brainchild of Debbie Hesse, director of artistic services and programs for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Hesse said she created the project to bring together artists from multiple disciplines and regions.
“I would never be able to reach so many peo-ple from di"erent [areas] of the region, from more urban artists to family collaborations from West-
port and Madison to serious installation artists,” Hesse said. “I love being able to just set up the parameters and allow the project to create itself.”
Hesse said she had the idea for Ripple E"ect several years before the project’s inception. She said she wanted to create a project that had a strong, driving concept while remaining process-oriented. She added that using terminology like “tag” and “poke” was a nod to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, which she hopes will help to clarify the exhibit’s interactive structure.
Arts Council Executive Director Cynthia Clair said she is pleased with the response the project has garnered in the arts community.
“Ripple adds another layer of activity to a mostly vacant space on Chapel,” Clair said. “Art-ists have responded to the space with a phenom-enal range of work.”
Two such artists, David Sepulveda and Steve DiGiovanni, contributed a series of “wire jam” fig-ures, made by twisting long lengths of metal wire into intricate shapes, to the building’s first floor. DiGiovanni said the creative process became play-ful as the ad-hoc, improvisational atmosphere of the building inspired him and Sepulveda. He said he wished the project could remain open longer, so that the collection could continue to grow.
Hesse said the environment of the building plays an important role in the creative process. Rip-ple E"ect’s host building at 756 Chapel St., which currently houses a men’s clothing store on the first floor, was built in 1877 in an Italianate Victo-rian style. In the past, it has been home to numer-ous businesses including a barbershop, a dentist’s o!ce, soda bottling machinery and a restaurant.
Insook Hwang, a local artist who contributed a wall drawing titled “Hi Love Kiss” to the build-ing’s second floor, said in an email that she believes the energy of the building, now filled with art, will contribute to the development of businesses downtown.
“I feel this show will make a good example of how art and business can help each other, because we made the space full of people and energy,” she said. “At the opening, I was really happy to see people smiling at my works, which is my purpose in art: making people happy.”
In addition to the Ripple Effect display, 756 Chapel St. also accommodates performances and events through other community arts projects.
Contact ROBERT PECK at [email protected] .
Creating ripples through artistic
community
ROBERT PECK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The “Ripple E!ect” project fosters collaborations between New Haven artists.
JOY SHAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Art Council’s recently launched Kickstarter page will amplify the online fundraising power of local arists.
KAMARIA GREENFIELD/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
School of Architecture professor Massimo Scolari’s exhibit highlights the importance of free-hand drawing. The show opened at Rudolph Hall on Monday and will remain on view until May 4.
ANNIE ROSEN
Annie Rosen ’08 MUS ’12 will perform on the Metropolitan Opera’s stage on March 18 for the National Council Auditions.
BY NATASHA THONDAVADISTAFF REPORTER
A new exhibit explores the artistic canon of renowned School of Architecture pro-fessor Massimo Scolari by highlighting the beauty possible in architectural drawings.
“Massimo Scolari: The Representation of Architecture” opened at Rudolph Hall on Monday. With the goal of emphasizing the school’s focus on the importance of free-hand drawing, the exhibit was timed to coin-cide with the spring symposium on the same subject that will take place later this week, Architecture School Dean Robert Stern ARC ’65 said. The show, open until May 4, traces Scolari’s work chronologically through the gallery while revealing motifs that unite the 54 images, said Director of Exhibitions Brian Butterfield ARC ’11, who curated the show in partnership with Scolari himself.
“The prevalence of computer design raises the problem of whether or not we need hand drawing in the design process,” Scolari said. “But I think freehand drawing is a very fun-damental step.”
Scolari explained that digital drawing requires the architect to impose precision on a design, which detracts from the grad-ual process of elaborating on an incomplete impression. If architects lack paper and pen to flesh out their ideas, he said, the bounds of creativity are limited.
Stern said he thought displaying Scolari’s work would successfully showcase these ideas, since Scolari’s drawings are “incom-parable” in quality and concern themselves with the artistic representation of architec-ture, rather than purely technical concerns.
Unlike the two shows held by the school earlier this year, “Massimo Scolari” involved the featured architect heavily in its design and curation, Stern said. The close relation-ship between the architect and the exhibit resulted in a di"erent final product than the school would have created on its own, But-terfield said.
“So much of his work is abstract and has historical themes that are represented in his drawings but are absent from his text,” Butterfield said. “So the fact that he can go through and group everything, creating whatever narrative he intends, is fantastic.”
Scolari was insistent that his drawings be displayed consistently throughout the show, Butterfield said, with each image mounted on a uniform black background fixed to a gray mount. With a large, open room, two side platforms and rough walls mimicking Rudolph Hall’s exterior, the second-floor exhibition space is flexible, Butterfield said, allowing curators to construct a variety of display structures within each show. The architect, however, chose the singular dis-play method to convey that his work over the past 40 years has been part of the same
thread and ought to be viewed as one set of images.
The first wing of the exhibit contains Sco-lari’s first drawings, including several pic-tures he created for competitions. On prom-inent display is an issue of Skyline Magazine for which Scolari drew the cover — about 20 rough sketches of buildings. A set of adjacent architectural models based on the sketches and created specifically for the show bring Scolari’s drawings to life, Butterfield said.
The middle and largest section of the show considers the main body of Scolari’s work. An enormous black glider — a smaller replica of one of Scolari’s sculptures in Ven-ice — hangs above gallerygoers’ heads. As one of several motifs that shows up repeat-edly in viewing the entire set of drawings, the image of the glider appears several times in the middle portion of the show, Butterfield said.
The final wing of the exhibition contains drawings from the last two decades, which feature more futuristic themes. Butterfield said that many of the pictures are dominated by space-age imagery.
Scolari will give a talk in conjunction with the exhibit titled “Representations” in Rudolph Hall on Thursday evening.
Contact NATASHA THONDAVADI at [email protected] .
Drawn by hand, Scolari exhibit captures spirit of architecture
BY YANAN WANGSTAFF REPORTER
The Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions Program is one of the most prestigious competitions for aspiring young opera singers. The con-test holds auditions in 14 regions across the United States and Canada, attract-ing the most talented emerging sing-ers in the field. This year, Annie Rosen ’08 MUS ’12 won first place in the New England Regional Auditions in Bos-ton. Rosen, who currently studies opera at the School of Music, will take the stage at the Met for the next round of the competition, the National Council Auditions, on March 18.
Q When did you start singing opera?
A I attended a singing summer camp when I was 17 and 18, but before
that it was mostly choral singing. I started officially singing opera in my sophomore year of college, when my friend Bryan dragged me to audition for an opera that was being put on by the Opera Theater of Yale College. The role I sang for was a male character called The Director, and I basically did the prologue
of the show. I got up there, and I sang an aria for about three to four minutes by myself. I had never done anything like that before.
Q How did you get involved w i t h t h e c o m p e t i t i o n ?
A If you’re a young opera singer, you know about the Met competition.
There aren’t that many reasons not to do it, because one of the best things about it is that you can receive feedback from the judges. I’ve done it for three years now. The first time, it was my second year out of [college], and I had never really done a competition. I was really nervous. That was how I ended up at Yale’s School of Music, actually, because Doris [Yarick Cross], the head of Yale opera and my voice teacher, came to listen to the dis-trict audition. She heard me, she asked me to audition for Yale Opera, and now I’m here!
Q How do you feel about your upcoming performance at the Met in March?
A It’s very much on my mind. I’ve just been trying to stay in the right
frame of mind. Opera is not a compe-tition — it’s art. I’m trying to remem-ber that the frame of this is not real; the reality of it is the performance. But not thinking about it is really hard — it’s seductive, you know? But in this com-petition, and in any competition, what the judges are looking for is simply a performer who has something to say.
Q Where do you like to sing?
A I like singing under the echoey bridges behind Central Park, and
in any — and I mean any — shower.
Q What are you working on right now?
A I’m playing Dora Bella in “Cosi Fan Tutti” [opening Friday]. It’s about
two sisters, and I’m the younger sister. Our boyfriends decide to test whether we’re faithful to them, so they pretend to go to war and come back as “other men” to seduce us. So we totally fall for it and end up falling in love with the other sis-ter’s boyfriend in the span of 24 hours.
Q If you could choose any opera to star in, what would it be, and why?
A I’m going to give you two answers, and one’s going to be a real answer
and one’s going to be a fake answer. Something I could kind of do right now is that I would like to be Romeo in Bell-ini’s version of “Romeo and Juliet” (“I Capuleti e i Montechhi”). The fake answer is that I want to be Tosca in “Tosca.”
Q What about opera makes it so com-pelling to you?
A I love the intensity of it. I love that even when it’s really trashy and
awful, it’s never trivial. Even when it’s trivial, it’s never trivial. It’s about people living their lives intensely, and crazy and interesting things always result from that. What it expresses and the way it expresses it is not something that can be accomplished with other art forms.
Contact YANAN WANG at [email protected] .
Opera singer Rosen MUS ’12 to take Met stage
Arts Council helps connect artists, donors
ARTS & CULTURETHIS WEEK
IN THE ARTS
THURS. FEB. 9 - SAT. FEB. 11JULIUS CAESAR A Yale School of Drama production of Shakespeare’s tale of Roman tragedy, directed by Ethan Heard DRA ’13.
Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St.
5:30 - 8:30 P.M. THURS. FEB. 9NEW MUSIC FOR THE CELLO A concert of student-composed inspired by the architecture of the Yale University Art Gallery, where the pieces will be performed.
Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St.
THURS. FEB. 9 - FEB. 18HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH A senior project for Brennan Caldwell ’12 produced collaboration with Sex Week at Yale, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” gives the stage to Hedwig Schmidt (Caldwell), a German transsexual with a botched sex-change. Yael Zinkow ’12 co-stars.
Calhoun Cabaret, Calhoun College
7 - 9:15 P.M. FRI. FEB. 10THE SWORD AND THE SCREEN The fourth in a series of screenings of Japanese samurai films from the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.
7 P.M. TUES. FEB. 14SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE For lovebirds looking for a date on the cheap (and those without a special someone in their life): a screening of John Madden’s now-classic 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes.
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.
FEB. 6 - MAY. 4MASSIMO SCOLARI: THE REPRESENTATION OF ARCHITECTURE Massimo Scolari, a former professor at the Yale School of Architecture, contributes his architectural drawings to a new exhibit at Rudolph Hall.
Rudolph Hall, 2nd Floor Gallery, 180 York St.
JAN. 23 - JUN. 29SHAKESPEARE AT YALE REP A collection of photographs and posters from the archives of the Yale Repertory Theater, the exhibit traces Shakespeare’s presence at the Rep since its foundation.
Whitney Humanities Center, Gallery, 53 Wall St.
JAN. 31 - MAR. 31MALCOLM MORLEY IN A NUTSHELL: THE FINE ART OF PAINTING 1954-2012 A show at the Yale School of Art featuring the work of British photorealist artist Malcolm Morley.
32 Edgewood Ave.
FEB. 2 - MAY 27MAKING HISTORY: ANTIQUARIES IN BRITAIN Drawing on its own collection and materials borrowed from the Society of Antiquaries of London, a new exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art celebrates Britain’s material history.
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St.
BY LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDOSTAFF REPORTER
A new partnership between the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and online fundrais-ing platform Kickstarter aims to broaden support for New Haven artists beyond those who know them personally.
Last week, the Arts Coun-cil launched its curator page on Kickstarter, expanding visibil-ity of New Haven artists in need of funding. The Arts Council’s Executive Director Cynthia Clair said that while she had known about Kickstarter for years, the Arts Council decided to launch the partnership after discovering last month that the city of Port-land, Ore. uses the site to pro-mote local artists.
Through Kickstarter, art-ists pitch their current projects online and put up a fundraising goal. Visitors can elect to pledge a dollar amount, and if the art-ist’s goal is met within a set time frame, the donation becomes a reality. Other groups that host similar pages on Kickstarter include the Sundance Film Festi-val, YouTube, the New Museum in New York City and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Clair said that a partnership with Kickstarter appealed to the Arts Council because it is a tried-and-true platform. Rather than reinventing the wheel for artis-tic promotion, she said, the Arts Council chose to use a known brand to support New Haven’s creative community. As the part-nership has only been live for a week, she added that it is di!-cult to measure the success of the Arts Council’s affiliation with Kickstarter.
Pantochino Productions, a non-profit theater group based in New Haven, raised about $14,000 through Kickstarter
before becoming one of the artis-tic groups featured on the Arts Council’s curator page, Panto-chino producer and director Bert Bernardi said in an email. The sum was enough to cover the expenses of the group’s first pro-duction, “Cinderella Skeleton: The Musical,” Bernardi said.
“[It was] amazing to [reach] people who we didn’t know at all — who found our Kick-starter page, watched our video and found it interesting enough to support,” Bernardi said. He added that the production com-pany supplemented the publicity from Kickstarter with constant
messages posted on Facebook and Twitter in order to maintain the project’s momentum.
New Haven filmmaker Gor-man Bechard said in an email that he has raised just under $100,000 through Kickstarter for his documentary film on the 80s band “The Replacements” titled “Color Me Obsessed.” He began fundraising in 2009, but said that searching for support took longer than the actual pro-duction of his project. While he is not a!liated with the Arts Coun-cil’s curator page on Kickstart, Bechard said the found Kick-starter an effective fundraising
tool as an independent artist.“[Kickstarter is] a dream come
true for the artistic community,” Bechard said. “It gives you total freedom. And the buzz begins long before your film is finished.”
The Arts Council’s curator page on Kickstarter currently features four artistic groups including Elm City Dance Col-lective, Pantochino Productions, musician Dave Ramos and the 9Realms fantasy film series.
Contact LIZ RODRIGUEZ-FLORIDO at [email protected] .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 9PAGE 8 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
“An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down … it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.” MARIA CALLAS OPERA SINGER
BY ROBERT PECKSTAFF REPORTER
In the four months since its opening, an artis-tic initiative spreading throughout a bare Chapel Street building has grown to connect dozens of regional artists.
Since October 2011, the “Ripple E"ect” art proj-ect housed at 756 Chapel St. has woven a web of creative interaction between artists in the Greater New Haven area. The project, which will continue until March, allows artists to “tag” and “poke” one another through works in a diverse range of media using the building’s three stories as a can-vas. When one artist references another in his or her work, the tagger sends a letter inviting the ref-erenced artists to add to the project, continuing an ever-growing chain of “ripples.” To date, 40 artists have contributed.
The project is the brainchild of Debbie Hesse, director of artistic services and programs for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Hesse said she created the project to bring together artists from multiple disciplines and regions.
“I would never be able to reach so many peo-ple from di"erent [areas] of the region, from more urban artists to family collaborations from West-
port and Madison to serious installation artists,” Hesse said. “I love being able to just set up the parameters and allow the project to create itself.”
Hesse said she had the idea for Ripple E"ect several years before the project’s inception. She said she wanted to create a project that had a strong, driving concept while remaining process-oriented. She added that using terminology like “tag” and “poke” was a nod to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, which she hopes will help to clarify the exhibit’s interactive structure.
Arts Council Executive Director Cynthia Clair said she is pleased with the response the project has garnered in the arts community.
“Ripple adds another layer of activity to a mostly vacant space on Chapel,” Clair said. “Art-ists have responded to the space with a phenom-enal range of work.”
Two such artists, David Sepulveda and Steve DiGiovanni, contributed a series of “wire jam” fig-ures, made by twisting long lengths of metal wire into intricate shapes, to the building’s first floor. DiGiovanni said the creative process became play-ful as the ad-hoc, improvisational atmosphere of the building inspired him and Sepulveda. He said he wished the project could remain open longer, so that the collection could continue to grow.
Hesse said the environment of the building plays an important role in the creative process. Rip-ple E"ect’s host building at 756 Chapel St., which currently houses a men’s clothing store on the first floor, was built in 1877 in an Italianate Victo-rian style. In the past, it has been home to numer-ous businesses including a barbershop, a dentist’s o!ce, soda bottling machinery and a restaurant.
Insook Hwang, a local artist who contributed a wall drawing titled “Hi Love Kiss” to the build-ing’s second floor, said in an email that she believes the energy of the building, now filled with art, will contribute to the development of businesses downtown.
“I feel this show will make a good example of how art and business can help each other, because we made the space full of people and energy,” she said. “At the opening, I was really happy to see people smiling at my works, which is my purpose in art: making people happy.”
In addition to the Ripple Effect display, 756 Chapel St. also accommodates performances and events through other community arts projects.
Contact ROBERT PECK at [email protected] .
Creating ripples through artistic
community
ROBERT PECK/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The “Ripple E!ect” project fosters collaborations between New Haven artists.
JOY SHAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Art Council’s recently launched Kickstarter page will amplify the online fundraising power of local arists.
KAMARIA GREENFIELD/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
School of Architecture professor Massimo Scolari’s exhibit highlights the importance of free-hand drawing. The show opened at Rudolph Hall on Monday and will remain on view until May 4.
ANNIE ROSEN
Annie Rosen ’08 MUS ’12 will perform on the Metropolitan Opera’s stage on March 18 for the National Council Auditions.
BY NATASHA THONDAVADISTAFF REPORTER
A new exhibit explores the artistic canon of renowned School of Architecture pro-fessor Massimo Scolari by highlighting the beauty possible in architectural drawings.
“Massimo Scolari: The Representation of Architecture” opened at Rudolph Hall on Monday. With the goal of emphasizing the school’s focus on the importance of free-hand drawing, the exhibit was timed to coin-cide with the spring symposium on the same subject that will take place later this week, Architecture School Dean Robert Stern ARC ’65 said. The show, open until May 4, traces Scolari’s work chronologically through the gallery while revealing motifs that unite the 54 images, said Director of Exhibitions Brian Butterfield ARC ’11, who curated the show in partnership with Scolari himself.
“The prevalence of computer design raises the problem of whether or not we need hand drawing in the design process,” Scolari said. “But I think freehand drawing is a very fun-damental step.”
Scolari explained that digital drawing requires the architect to impose precision on a design, which detracts from the grad-ual process of elaborating on an incomplete impression. If architects lack paper and pen to flesh out their ideas, he said, the bounds of creativity are limited.
Stern said he thought displaying Scolari’s work would successfully showcase these ideas, since Scolari’s drawings are “incom-parable” in quality and concern themselves with the artistic representation of architec-ture, rather than purely technical concerns.
Unlike the two shows held by the school earlier this year, “Massimo Scolari” involved the featured architect heavily in its design and curation, Stern said. The close relation-ship between the architect and the exhibit resulted in a di"erent final product than the school would have created on its own, But-terfield said.
“So much of his work is abstract and has historical themes that are represented in his drawings but are absent from his text,” Butterfield said. “So the fact that he can go through and group everything, creating whatever narrative he intends, is fantastic.”
Scolari was insistent that his drawings be displayed consistently throughout the show, Butterfield said, with each image mounted on a uniform black background fixed to a gray mount. With a large, open room, two side platforms and rough walls mimicking Rudolph Hall’s exterior, the second-floor exhibition space is flexible, Butterfield said, allowing curators to construct a variety of display structures within each show. The architect, however, chose the singular dis-play method to convey that his work over the past 40 years has been part of the same
thread and ought to be viewed as one set of images.
The first wing of the exhibit contains Sco-lari’s first drawings, including several pic-tures he created for competitions. On prom-inent display is an issue of Skyline Magazine for which Scolari drew the cover — about 20 rough sketches of buildings. A set of adjacent architectural models based on the sketches and created specifically for the show bring Scolari’s drawings to life, Butterfield said.
The middle and largest section of the show considers the main body of Scolari’s work. An enormous black glider — a smaller replica of one of Scolari’s sculptures in Ven-ice — hangs above gallerygoers’ heads. As one of several motifs that shows up repeat-edly in viewing the entire set of drawings, the image of the glider appears several times in the middle portion of the show, Butterfield said.
The final wing of the exhibition contains drawings from the last two decades, which feature more futuristic themes. Butterfield said that many of the pictures are dominated by space-age imagery.
Scolari will give a talk in conjunction with the exhibit titled “Representations” in Rudolph Hall on Thursday evening.
Contact NATASHA THONDAVADI at [email protected] .
Drawn by hand, Scolari exhibit captures spirit of architecture
BY YANAN WANGSTAFF REPORTER
The Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions Program is one of the most prestigious competitions for aspiring young opera singers. The con-test holds auditions in 14 regions across the United States and Canada, attract-ing the most talented emerging sing-ers in the field. This year, Annie Rosen ’08 MUS ’12 won first place in the New England Regional Auditions in Bos-ton. Rosen, who currently studies opera at the School of Music, will take the stage at the Met for the next round of the competition, the National Council Auditions, on March 18.
Q When did you start singing opera?
A I attended a singing summer camp when I was 17 and 18, but before
that it was mostly choral singing. I started officially singing opera in my sophomore year of college, when my friend Bryan dragged me to audition for an opera that was being put on by the Opera Theater of Yale College. The role I sang for was a male character called The Director, and I basically did the prologue
of the show. I got up there, and I sang an aria for about three to four minutes by myself. I had never done anything like that before.
Q How did you get involved w i t h t h e c o m p e t i t i o n ?
A If you’re a young opera singer, you know about the Met competition.
There aren’t that many reasons not to do it, because one of the best things about it is that you can receive feedback from the judges. I’ve done it for three years now. The first time, it was my second year out of [college], and I had never really done a competition. I was really nervous. That was how I ended up at Yale’s School of Music, actually, because Doris [Yarick Cross], the head of Yale opera and my voice teacher, came to listen to the dis-trict audition. She heard me, she asked me to audition for Yale Opera, and now I’m here!
Q How do you feel about your upcoming performance at the Met in March?
A It’s very much on my mind. I’ve just been trying to stay in the right
frame of mind. Opera is not a compe-tition — it’s art. I’m trying to remem-ber that the frame of this is not real; the reality of it is the performance. But not thinking about it is really hard — it’s seductive, you know? But in this com-petition, and in any competition, what the judges are looking for is simply a performer who has something to say.
Q Where do you like to sing?
A I like singing under the echoey bridges behind Central Park, and
in any — and I mean any — shower.
Q What are you working on right now?
A I’m playing Dora Bella in “Cosi Fan Tutti” [opening Friday]. It’s about
two sisters, and I’m the younger sister. Our boyfriends decide to test whether we’re faithful to them, so they pretend to go to war and come back as “other men” to seduce us. So we totally fall for it and end up falling in love with the other sis-ter’s boyfriend in the span of 24 hours.
Q If you could choose any opera to star in, what would it be, and why?
A I’m going to give you two answers, and one’s going to be a real answer
and one’s going to be a fake answer. Something I could kind of do right now is that I would like to be Romeo in Bell-ini’s version of “Romeo and Juliet” (“I Capuleti e i Montechhi”). The fake answer is that I want to be Tosca in “Tosca.”
Q What about opera makes it so com-pelling to you?
A I love the intensity of it. I love that even when it’s really trashy and
awful, it’s never trivial. Even when it’s trivial, it’s never trivial. It’s about people living their lives intensely, and crazy and interesting things always result from that. What it expresses and the way it expresses it is not something that can be accomplished with other art forms.
Contact YANAN WANG at [email protected] .
Opera singer Rosen MUS ’12 to take Met stage
Arts Council helps connect artists, donors
AROUND THE IVIESPAGE 10 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
“It’s dark and freezing and everyone’s wear-ing bulky coats, so you can do some serious subway flirting before you realize the guy is homeless.” LIZ LEMON “30 ROCK” CHARACTER
BY MORGAN JOHNSONSENIOR STAFF WRITER
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority may eliminate commuter rail ser-vice weekdays after 10 p.m. and weekends, according to propos-als released last month by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Board Finance Committee. These changes, which would affect students who travel between Providence and Boston, would take e!ect in July.
“It’s really harmful to so many of us who rely on a low-cost transportation option in the greater eastern Massachusetts area,” said Jesse McGleughlin ‘14, a Boston native who uses the commuter rail to visit home and commuted weekly last year to do community service work in the city.
The MBTA, which controls Massachusetts area subway, bus, ferry and commuter rail systems, released the report fol-lowing a projected fiscal year deficit of $161 million for 2013 and total debt of $9 billion.
The report contains two pro-posed money-saving scenar-ios, each to save $165.1 million in annual revenue. The first sce-nario proposes an average 43 percent increase in current fares and the elimination of 60 bus routes. The second plan includes a 35 percent fare increase but eliminates 220 bus routes. Both plans would eliminate weekend and late-night commuter rail service.
The MBTA has held 11 public forums in the past month fol-lowing the release of the pro-
posals and p l a n s to h o l d a n a d d i t i o n a l 11 meetings t h r o u g h M a rc h 6. B a se d o n t h e o u t -
comes of those meetings, the MBTA will make final recom-mendations before the board votes on the changes in April.
The public is welcome to submit comments through the MBTA website, but no meetings are currently scheduled to take place in Rhode Island.
Students who use the ser-vice expressed concern over the potential changes.
“It’s really the only mode of transportation that is con-venient and frequent enough to get into Boston for stu-dents who don’t have cars,” said Jason Shum ‘14, who uses the commuter rail once or twice a month. “The buses to Boston as I know are quite infrequent,” he said.
“Many of us prefer the train to automobiles and count on the a!ordable costs,” McGleughlin said. “The high prices of Amtrak are not a good solution.”
Members of T Riders Union, a group that represents low-income and transit-depen-dent communities, have testi-fied against the proposals at the forums and MBTA board meet-ings.
“The highest proportional increases will be forced on the most vulnerable riders through the elimination of senior and student passes,” the union stated in a Dec. 7 press release.
The MBTA proposal also sug-gests examining a reduction of current senior and student dis-counts from paying a third to one half of the regular rate.
The report also proposes eliminating the acceptance of tokens as fare payment and reducing the expiration of com-muter rail tickets from 180 to 14 days after purchase.
Since its last fare increase in 2007, the MBTA has attempted to combat its debt through crackdowns on fare-evading passengers, service reduction in winter months and the open-ing of a new energy-saving wind turbine last October. The MBTA released this year’s fare hike and service reduction propos-als despite a 3.2 percent increase in ridership in October 2010 and a record-high 1.35 million trips per weekday last September, according to a Nov. 2 article in the Boston Globe.
Similar plans to raise fares and cut service in 2009 were avoided when the MBTA received $160 million in public funding from the state.
“The T is trying to plug a growing hole with the same tired idea: balancing the budget on the backs of riders through another fare increase and cuts,” said union member Gwendolyn Vincent in her testimony at the MBTA board meeting in Decem-ber, according to a press release from the group.
“If you ask me, the fee hikes are really just a result of anti-quated management systems and costly trains,” Shum said. “Half of the train carts are empty, which is frankly quite stupid in my opinion,” he added.
B R O W N D A I L Y H E R A L D
MBTA may cut access
BY DANIELLE SOCHACZEVSKISTAFF WRITER
Cornell Police officers are expressing concern regarding what they have identified as a recent uptick in the number of reported thefts on campus. More than 50 cases of grand and petit larceny were reported in the last three months alone, according to CUPD.
Deputy Chief David Honan of CUPD said that there were 43 percent more larcenies this year than last year. According to Honan, there were 138 thefts reported between February 2011 and February 2012, as opposed to 96 from February 2010 to Febru-ary 2011.
“Larceny is the most common crime reported to the Cornell University Police,” Honan said in an email Friday. “At the end of last semester, we observed an increase in a short period of time which caused us to warn the community.”
The University has seen a slight but steady rise of on-cam-pus theft over the past couple of years. according to Honan. CUPD believes the increase can be attributed to both “more con-sistent reporting” of crimes as well as “an actual increase in lar-cenies,” he said.
The most c o m m o n ly stolen items are laptops, cell phones, p o r t a -ble music p l a y e r s and cash,
according to CUPD, while other acts of theft have included bicy-cles, textbooks and furniture. Locker rooms and libraries are among the locations most fre-quently targeted by thieves.
According to Steven Miller, a chef for Cornell Dining, the incidence of stealing food is another form of larceny that has increased at Cornell over the last few years.
“Food theft is rampant,”
Miller said. “It’s a concern that might drive up the price of the meal plan.”
Miller denounced a recent rumor circulating on Facebook, that the University currently charges an additional $50 for each student’s meal plan to com-pensate for food theft, as harm-ful and untrue. However, he did say there is a chance that the rise in thefts could lead Cornell Din-ing to increase prices.
Bryan Roberts, also a chef for Cornell Dining, explained that removing food from all-you-can-eat eateries on campus con-stitutes theft.
“Students don’t realize that taking food out of the dining halls in Tupperware is definitely stealing,” he said. “It’s never okay to steal.”
According to Honan, CUPD is enlisting the help of the Cornell community to rein in theft, urg-ing students to secure their valu-ables and homes, and to be pro-active about reporting larceny incidents promptly to the police.
“This allows us the greatest opportunity to find leads and evidence related to the case,” he said. “It also provides us the opportunity to analyze thefts to determine if there are any pat-terns we can use to help solve the case or prevent future thefts.”
C O R N E L L D A I L Y S U N
Reports of campus theft increase
LISA HEUNG/BROWN DAILY HERALD
Despite a fare increase in 2007, MBTA usage has continued to increase.
C O L U M B I A D A I L Y S P E C T A T O R
Times editor to keynote Barnard graduation
BY SAMMY ROTH AND EMILY NEILSENIOR STAFF WRITERS
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson will deliver the keynote at Bar-nard’s commencement this May, the college announced on Monday.
Abramson became the first woman to hold the top editorial position at the Times in September, when she replaced Bill Keller. Abramson has spent 15 years at the Times, pre-viously serving as managing editor and Wash-ington bureau chief.
“From her early days as a reporter to her cur-rent post as the paper’s executive editor, she has been unfailing in her convictions and a true inspiration,” Barnard President Debora Spar said in a statement. “I am certain that our grad-uates will be energized by her words and per-sonal story.”
Abramson has also worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she was the deputy Washington bureau chief, and Time magazine, where she covered the 1976 presidential election.
Barnard students said it would be exciting to have Abramson at commencement, espe-
cially as a woman who has reached the pinnacle of her profession.
“I think it will be inter-esting to hear what she has to say about being a young woman in the city and how to make it all the way to the top,” Ellen
Watkins, BC ’14, said. “Because she’s really at the top.”
Emma Goidel, BC ’12, was not familiar with Abramson before receiving the email announc-ing her as commencement speaker. But Goidel said she liked what she read about her.
“I’m excited. I’m glad that it’s someone who is successful but is not a celebrity, and I think that’s a job a lot of Barnard students might aspire to,” Goidel said. “Hearing her thoughts about how to move through a career path as a woman in New York is probably going to be interesting. I think she’ll be really inspiring.”
“I’m sure there’s so many women here who feel, ‘That’s the job I want,’ and to see her speak and get her advice, that will be really special,” Goidel added.
BROWN
COLUMBIA
COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR
Barnard’s 2011 graduation. At the school’s 2012 ceremony, New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson will deliver the keynote address.
CORNELL
Students don’t realize that taking food out of the dining halls in Tupperware is definitely stealing. It’s never okay to steal.
BRYAN ROBERTSChef, Cornell Dining
NATIONYALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 11
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BY LISA LEFFASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Same-sex mar-riage moved one step closer to the Supreme Court on Tuesday when a fed-eral appeals court ruled California’s ban unconstitutional, saying it serves no purpose other than to “lessen the sta-tus and human dignity” of gays.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Cir-cuit Court of Appeals gave gay marriage opponents time to appeal the 2–1 deci-sion before ordering the state to allow same-sex weddings to resume.
“I’m ecstatic. I recognize that we have a ways to go yet. We may have one or two more legal steps,” said Jane Ley-land, who was gathered with a small crowd outside the federal courthouse in downtown San Francisco, cheering as they learned of the ruling.
Leyland married her longtime part-ner, Terry Gilb, during the five-month window when same-sex marriage was legal in California.
“But when we first got together, I would have never dreamed in a million years that we would be allowed to be legally married, and here we are.”
The ban known as Proposition 8 was approved by voters in 2008 with 52 per-cent of the vote. The court said it was unconstitutional because it singled out a minority group for disparate treat-ment for no compelling reason.
The justices concluded that the law had no purpose other than to deny gay couples marriage, since California already grants them all the rights and benefits of marriage if they register as domestic partners.
“Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called `How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire,’ it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different,” the court said.
The lone dissenting judge insisted that the ban could help ensure that children are raised by married, oppo-
site-sex parents.The appeals court focused its deci-
sion exclusively on California’s ban, not the bigger debate, even though the court has jurisdiction in nine Western states.
Whether same-sex couples may ever be denied the right to marry “is an important and highly controversial question,” the court said. “We need not and do not answer the broader question in this case.”
Six states allow gay couples to wed — Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and Ver-mont, as well as the District of Colum-bia. California, as the nation’s most populous state and home to more than 98,000 same-sex couples, would be the gay rights movement’s biggest prize of them all.
The 9th Circuit concluded that a trial-court judge had correctly inter-preted the Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he threw out Proposition 8.
The measure “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and fami-lies as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt, one of the court’s most liberal judges, wrote in the 2-1 opinion.
Opponents of gay marriage planned
to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling, which came more than a year after the appeals court panel heard arguments in the case.
“We are not surprised that this Hol-lywood-orchestrated attack on mar-riage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American peo-ple in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group based in Arizona that helped defend Proposi-tion 8.
Legal analysts questioned whether the Supreme Court would agree to take the case because of the narrow scope of the ruling. California is the only state to grant gays the right to marry and rescind it.
Douglas NeJaime, an associate pro-fessor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the Ninth Circuit’s nar-row decision would allow the Supreme Court to uphold the measure without ruling “on marriage for same-sex cou-ples on a national scale.”
“In effect, the Ninth Circuit’s deci-sion allows the Supreme Court to con-tinue the incremental, case-by-case trajectory of marriage for same-sex couples in the United States,” NeJaime said in an email.
Weddings appeared unlikely to resume anytime soon. The ruling will not take effect until the deadline passes in two weeks for Proposition 8’s back-ers to appeal to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit. Lawyers for the coalition of conservative religious groups that sponsored the measure said they have not decided if they will seek a 9th Cir-cuit rehearing or file an appeal directly to the Supreme Court.
The panel also said there was no evi-dence that former Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker was biased and should have disclosed that he was gay and in a long-term relationship with another man.
Court rejects marriage ban
BY CHARLES BABINGTONASSOCIATED PRESS
DAYTON, Ohio — Politi-cal turmoil over abortion and birth control spread suddenly on Tuesday. A high-ranking offi-cial resigned from the Komen breast-cancer charity after its backtracking treaty with Planned Parenthood, and Republican presidential candidates blistered the Obama administration for a recent ruling on Catholic hospi-tals and contraception.
The White House made a point of declaring it wanted to ease the concerns of church-affiliated employers — many would be required to provide birth control coverage to their workers under the new rules — but there was no word on how those concerns might be addressed.
The two-track drama pumped new furor into longstanding disputes that sometimes take a backseat in political cam-paigns because the lines are so familiar and firmly drawn. Last week’s Komen-Planned Parent-hood dispute stirred many wom-
en’s groups that support legal abortion. And the Obama ruling touched a nerve with moderate Roman Catholics who support contraceptives but also defend their church’s right to run its hospitals and other institutions according to religious convic-tions.
Republican presidential can-didates pounced on what they considered a blunder by Presi-dent Barack Obama. They believe his administration’s ruling will alienate moderate Catholic vot-ers who could prove crucial in November in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
There also could be political repercussions from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure contro-versy. The breast-cancer char-ity, facing fierce criticism, mostly from women’s groups, quickly overturned its decision to cut o! funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a major provider of abortions, but it also screens women for breast cancer and other health problems.
In Atlanta, Karen Handel, a Komen vice president who played
a role in the fund cuto! decision, resigned Tuesday. A Republican who ran for governor in Geor-gia, Handel was seen by some as an example of what they felt was an increasing tendency by Komen to bring partisan politics into the charity’s decisions.
“I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale and my involvement in it,” Handel said in her resignation letter.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for his part, said he sup-ported Komen’s original decision to stop funding Planned Parent-hood.
The arguments came as the GOP presidential hopefuls cam-paigned in several states and Republicans voted in Colorado and Minnesota. Each candidate tried to take advantage of the unusually intense focus on repro-ductive issues.
Romney, a Mormon, decried Obama’s “assault on religion,” telling Colorado voters the new contraception ruling was “a real blow ... to our friends in the Catholic faith.”
Abortion, birth control grab political spotlight
BY DAVID ESPO AND PHILIP ELLIOTTASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Repub-lican front-runner Mitt Rom-ney battled Rick Santorum and Ron Paul on Tuesday in political caucuses in Minnesota and Col-orado, hoping to extend his win-ning streak in the race for the presidential nomination.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich mounted no significant campaign in either state, looking ahead to primaries elsewhere.
Romney prevailed in both Minnesota and Colorado in 2008, the first time he ran for the nomination, but the GOP has become more conservative in both states since then under the influence of tea party activists.
There were 37 Republican National Convention delegates at stake in Minnesota and 33 more in Colorado.
In addition, Missouri held a non-binding primary on Tues-day. The state picks its delegates at caucuses next month.
Santorum, a former Penn-sylvania senator, campaigned aggressively in all three states, seeking a breakthrough to revi-talize a campaign that has strug-gled since his narrow first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a month ago.
Paul, a Texas lawmaker, has yet to win a primary or cau-cus. He arrived at a caucus site in Coon Rapids, Minn., in early evening to shake hands with early arrivers, and had to squeeze his way through a crowd of autograph seekers.
Romney began the day the leader in the delegate chase, with 101 of the 1,144 needed to capture the nomination at the Republican National Conven-tion this summer in Tampa. Gingrich had 32, Santorum 17 and Paul nine.
Taken together, the number of delegates at stake Tuesday was the largest one-day total yet in the Republican race to pick a rival for President Barack Obama. Even so, the campaign-ing was a pale comparison to the Iowa caucuses or primaries last month in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.
Television advertising was sparse; neither Colorado nor Minnesota hosted a candidates’ debate, and there was relatively little campaigning by the con-tenders themselves until the past few days.
The same was true in last weekend’s Nevada caucuses, which Romney won on the heels of a Florida primary victory days earlier. The same pattern holds in Maine, where caucuses finish on Saturday.
Not until primaries in Mich-igan and Arizona on Feb. 28 is the campaign likely to regain the intensity that character-ized the first few weeks of the year. Then it roars back to life with a 10-state Super Tuesday on March 6 with 416 convention delegates at stake.
Santorum, in particular, hoped to seize the relative lull to redeem the promise of his Iowa victory.
Romney tries to hold onto lead
LAURA ODA/ASSOCIATED PRESSBrian Keeton and Jay Dwyer celebrate after a federal appeals court declared California’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
CHARLES DHARAPAK/ASSOCIATED PRESSSupporters of Republican presidential candidates Ron Paul and Mitt Rom-ney campaign outside of a polling station in Manchester, N.H.
REX CURRY/ASSOCIATED PRESSMoveOn.org organizers deliver a 832,000 signature petition to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure headquarters protesting the foundation’s now-reversed decision to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood.
Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called “How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire,” it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion
WORLDPAGE 12 YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
“Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.FIDEL CASTRO FORMER PRESIDENT OF CUBA
BY ELIZABETH KENNEDYASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT — Days after block-ing a U.S.-backed peace plan at the U.N., senior Russian offi-cials pushed for reforms Tues-day during an emergency meet-ing with Syrian President Bashar Assad, promoting a settlement to end the uprising without removing him from power.
Thousands of flag-waving government supporters cheered the Russians in the Syrian cap-ital of Damascus, while to the north, Assad’s forces pounded the opposition city of Homs — underscoring the sharp divisions propelling the country toward civil war.
The violence has led to the most severe international isola-tion in more than four decades of Assad family rule, with country after country calling home their envoys.
France, Italy, Spain and Bel-gium pulled their ambassadors from Damascus, as did six Gulf nations, including Saudi Ara-bia. Germany, whose envoy left the country this month, said he would not be replaced. The moves came a day after the U.S. closed its embassy in Syria and Britain recalled its ambassador.
Turkey, once a strong Assad supporter and now one of his most vocal critics, added its voice to the international con-demnation, with Prime Minis-
ter Recep Tayyip Erdogan say-ing his country cannot remain silent about massacres in Syria. He said Turkey would “launch a new initiative with countries that stand by the Syrian people instead of the regime.”
His comments reflect a grow-ing movement by the U.S., Europe and countries in the region to organize a coalition of nations to back Syria’s opposi-tion, though what kind of sup-port remains unclear. Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for “friends of democratic Syria” to unite and rally against Assad’s regime.
On Tuesday, the Obama administration suggested it might provide humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, but did not specify how or to whom.
Russian Foreign Minister Ser-gey Lavrov flew into Damascus on Tuesday, accompanied by his foreign security chief, to try to boost a plan that would keep Assad in power, even though many prominent members of the opposition reject that entirely.
“It’s clear that e!orts to stop the violence should be accompa-nied by the beginning of dialogue among the political forces,” Lav-rov said, according to the Rus-sian news agency ITAR-Tass. “Today we received confirma-tion of the readiness of the pres-ident of Syria for this work.”
The visit was also a sign that
Moscow wanted to get a first-hand assessment of the situation on the ground in Syria — and the raucous welcome the diplo-mats received from thousands of regime supporters appeared aimed at showing that Assad’s grip is firm, at least in Damascus.
Syria has been a key Russian ally since Soviet times, and Mos-cow remains a major arms sup-plier to Damascus even as Assad unleashes his forces to crush not only peaceful protesters, but army defectors who are fighting the regime.
The U.N. estimates the gov-ernment crackdown has killed more than 5,400 people since March, making Syria’s con-flict one of the deadliest of the Arab Spring. Hundreds more are believed to have died since the U.N. released that figure in Janu-ary, but the chaos in the country has made it impossible for the world body to update its figures.
Tuesday’s visit by Lavrov and intelligence chief Mikhail Frad-kov was evidence that Russia does not want to be seen as giv-ing Assad a free hand to crush his opponents in the wake of Satur-day’s veto at the U.N. Security Council.
Both Russia and China blocked a Western- and Arab-backed resolution support-ing calls for Assad to hand over some powers as a way to defuse the 11-month-old crisis.
Russia has opposed any U.N.
call that could be interpreted as advocating military interven-tion or regime change. Russia and China also used their veto powers in October to block an attempt to condemn the vio-lence in Syria.
On Tuesday, Moscow deliv-ered its own message to Syria,
calling on all sides to hold a meaningful dialogue.
“Necessary reforms must be implemented in order to address legitimate demands of the peo-ple striving for a better life,” Lavrov told Assad, according to ITAR-Tass.”
Assad replied that Syria is
determined to hold a national dialogue with the opposition and independent figures, saying his government was “ready to coop-erate with any e!ort that boosts stability in Syria,” according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.
Russia amplifies pressure on Syria
BY DEREK GATOPOULOS AND GABRIELE STEINHAUSER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s private creditors signaled prog-ress late Tuesday on a debt-relief deal but crucial talks between Greek coalition leaders about forcing more austerity upon a hostile public were again post-poned.
Anger flared on the streets of Athens as more than 20,000 protesters marched through the Greek capital and unions called a general strike Tuesday against the new cuts in jobs and spend-ing. The strike halted trains and ferries, closed down schools and banks and put state hospitals on short sta"ng.
Several hundred protesters clashed with riot police outside Parliament and set fire to a Ger-man flag — upset over Germany’s role in demanding more austerity from Athens.
“They are committing a crime against the country. They are driving wage-earners into pov-erty and wiping out pensioners and the unemployed,” said Van-gelis Moutafis, a senior mem-ber of Greece’s largest union, the GSEE. “They are selling o! state assets for nothing. This cannot continue.”
G re e k P re m i e r L u c a s Papademos delayed a meet-ing with his coalition parties till Wednesday, staying in talks until late in the night with top bank negotiators as well as with debt inspectors from the Euro-pean Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Greece is under massive time pressure to secure a new euro130 billion ($170 billion) bailout from its partners in the euro and the IMF without which it will default in March on its massive debts.
Representatives of the Insti-tute of International Finance, which has been leading the talks for private bondholders on for-giving Greece part of its debts, had a “constructive meeting” with Papademos, IIF spokesman Frank Vogl said.
Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will soon brief the rest of the 17-nation eurozone on the pro-posed deal, Vogl said — a sign the bond-swap deal could be close.
The meeting of eurozone finance ministers could happen as soon as Thursday in Brussels, according to officials, although that will depend on finding agreement in Athens on the terms of the second bailout.
Greece has been kept solvent since May 2010 by payments from a euro110 billion ($145 bil-lion) international rescue loan package. When it became clear the money would not be enough, a second bailout was decided last October.
As well as passing new aus-terity measures, the second bail-out depends on Greece’s sepa-rate talks with banks and other private bondholders to forgive euro100 billion ($132 billion) in Greek debt. The private investors are expected to swap their cur-rent bonds for new bonds worth 50 percent less than the original face value, with longer repayment terms and a lower interest rate.
Signs of progress as debt talks drag BY PETER ORSI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HAVANA — When it started, American teenagers were doing “The Twist.” The United States had yet to put a man into orbit around the Earth. And a first-class U.S. postage stamp cost 4 cents.
The world is much changed since the early days of 1962, but one thing has remained constant: The U.S. economic embargo on communist-run Cuba, a near-total trade ban that turned 50 on Tuesday.
Supporters say it is a justified measure against a repressive government that has never stopped being a thorn in Washing-ton’s side. Critics call it a failed policy that has hurt ordinary Cubans instead of the government.
All acknowledge that it has not accom-plished its core mission of toppling Fidel and Raul Castro.
“All this time has gone by, and yet we keep it in place,” said Wayne Smith, who was a young U.S. diplomat in Havana in 1961 when relations were severed and who returned as the chief American dip-lomat after they were partially re-estab-lished under President Jimmy Carter.
“We talk to the Russians, we talk to the Chinese, we have normal relations even with Vietnam. We trade with all of them,” Smith said. “So why not with Cuba?”
In the White House, the first sign of the looming embargo came when Presi-dent John F. Kennedy told his press sec-retary to go buy him as many H. Upmann Cuban cigars as he could find. The aide came back with 1,200 stogies.
Kennedy announced the embargo on Feb. 3, 1962, citing “the subversive o!en-sive of Sino-Soviet communism with
which the government of Cuba is pub-licly aligned.”
It went into e!ect four days later at the height of the Cold War, a year removed from the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion meant to oust communism from Cuba and eight months before Soviet attempts to put nuclear missiles on the island brought the two superpowers to the brink of war.
Washington already had some limited sanctions in place, but Kennedy’s deci-sion was the beginning of a comprehen-sive ban on U.S. trade with the island that has remained more or less intact ever since.
Little was planned to mark Tuesday’s anniversary, but Cuban-American mem-bers of Congress issued a joint statement vowing to keep the heat on Cuba.
Supporters of the policy acknowl-edge that many U.S. strategic concerns from the 1960s have been consigned to the dustbin of history, such as halting the spread of Soviet influence and keeping Fidel Castro from exporting revolution throughout Latin America. But they say other justifications remain, such as the confiscation of U.S. property in Cuba and the need to press for greater political and
personal freedoms on the island.“We have a hemispheric commitment
to freedom and democracy and respect for human rights,” said Jose Cardenas, a former National Security Council sta!er on Cuba under President George W. Bush. “I still think that those are worthy aspirations.”
With just 90 miles (145 kilometers) of sea between Florida and Cuba, the United States would be a natural No. 1 trade partner and source of tourism. But the embargo chokes o! most commerce, and the threat of sti! fines keeps most Amer-icans from sunbathing in balmy resorts like Cayo Coco.
Cuba is free to trade with other nations, but the U.S. threatens sanc-tions against foreign companies that don’t abide by its restrictions. A stark example arrived o! the coast of Havana last month: A massive oil exploration rig built with less than 10 percent U.S. parts to qualify under the embargo was brought all the way from Singapore at great expense, while comparable plat-forms sat idle in U.S. waters just across the Gulf of Mexico.
The embargo is a constant talking point for island authorities, who blame it for shortages of everything from medi-cal equipment to the concrete needed to complete an eight-lane highway span-ning the length of the island. Cuba fre-quently fulminates against the “block-ade” at the United Nations and demands the U.S. end its “genocidal” policy.
Every fall, like clockwork, the vast majority of nations agree, and over-whelmingly back a resolution condemn-ing the embargo. In November, 186 coun-tries supported the measure, with only Israel joining the U.S. in opposition.
Economic embargo on Cuba turns 50
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, meets with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, Syria.
DIMITRI MESSINIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pedestrians walk across the tram lines in Athens’ Syntagma Square as a 24-hour strike stopped train and ferry services nationwide.
We talk to the Russians, we talk to the Chinese … We trade with all of them. So why not with Cuba?
WAYNE SMITHFormer Chief of Mission, U.S. Interests Section in
Havana
SPORTS
games, the Elis have often had to agree to play the opposing team twice on its home turf.
Often, coaches of teams from smaller conferences reach out to former colleagues at bigger schools to help secure nonconfer-ence games.
“I think the coaching world is a big fra-ternity,” Bennett said. “They see each other out on the recruiting trail. Coaches build relationships, and that certainly helps with scheduling.”
But when two friends play, one has to lose.
“You really don’t want to play your friends too often,” Jones said. “There’s no winner there. My brother [Joe Jones, head coach of Boston University] and I will never play each other. I rely more on assistant coaches at other places like at Wake Forest [to schedule games].”
Nonconference games also serve as a recruiting tool. Cornell basketball head coach William Courtney said that since he and other Ivies recruit nationally, the
opportunity for a recruit to play close to home at least once is an incentive. Jones agreed with his Cornell counterpart, add-ing that it is part of his “recruiting spiel.” He said he tells every recruit that Yale will play in his hometown at least once over his four-year career.
“Next year we’re going to Nevada for [Austin] Morgan ’13, St. Mary’s for Jere-miah [Kreisberg] ’14, and this year we went down to Wake Forest for Mike Grace ’13,” Jones said.
Bennett added that a game is also being scheduled against Iowa State in the future for guard Jesse Pritchard ’14, a native of
Ames, Iowa. Next year, Courtney said, Cornell will play Vanderbilt for guard Miles Asafo-Adjei of Antioch, Tenn.
Scheduling games against mammoth college basketball teams itself serves a recruiting purpose, Courtney said. Play-ing every year on a big court in front of tens of thousands of fans is alluring to an Ivy League basketball recruit.
“Absolutely all of the [Ivy League] schools will use those attractive games against big-name opponents to show recruits,” Courtney explained.
Even better than an attractive game against a big-name opponent, though, is a famous win. Although rare for an Ivy League team, a triumph over a squad in the national spotlight sends a powerful state-ment, perhaps more powerful than an Ivy League title. Such a victory is possible only by taking a chance and scheduling big-name teams.
Contact CHARLES CONDRO at [email protected] and JOSEPH ROSENBERG at [email protected] .
to finish in 16th,” Lesnewich added. The Bulldogs will look to improve on
last year’s seventh place finish in the tournament where they advanced to the quarterfinals before falling, 19–7, to Bowling Green State University.
Yale, which finished sixth in the Ivies last fall, will open the tournament with matches against the three other teams in its pool: defending champion Cen-tral Washington Univerisity, Weber State University and Indiana University. In order to advance to the elimination round, the Bulldogs will have to finish as one of the top two teams in the pool.
Though Finger acknowledged that getting a draw in a competition that includes Central Washington will be dif-ficult, he added that Yale will probably be a school the Wildcats will overlook, which might play to the Bulldogs favor.
“We’re going there with the feeling that we can play with anyone,” Morse said. “Sevens is only 14 minutes long, and anything can happen. You get a cou-ple of bounces your way, and you can be knocking o! the defending champions, no problem.”
Unlike traditional rugby, in which 15 players from each side are on the field and compete in two 40-minute halves, sevens rugby pits just seven players from each team against each other in two seven-minute halves. Because there are half as many players on the field in sevens, teams have more space to move the ball around and find gaps to exploit on the field.
The Bulldogs hope their speed will allow them to take advantage of the extra space during the competition.
“We have a lot of really fast players that we didn’t have last year,” Finger said. “The forwards we have going are
also strong, so it’s a good combination of players that can set up plays and also guys who are fast enough to score in a lot of di!erent scenarios.”
In preparation for the tournament, members of the team have been hold-ing four o"cial practices a week, though many of the players continue to train on their own on o!-days. The Elis split their time between training at Payne Whitney Gym and practicing at the Connecticut Sportsplex, an indoor facility in North Branford.
Although team members take com-peting seriously, they enjoy that rugby is not normally as heavy a commitment as a varsity sport.
“It becomes a big part of your life at Yale, but as opposed to a varsity sport, it doesn’t dominate it,” Sam Teicher ’12 said. “We do train hard, we work hard, but it’s not all-consuming.”
The team is gearing up for two more exciting competitions after Vegas.
Each year during spring break the team embarks on an international tour to a rugby-playing country to play some games and bond as a team. This year, the Bulldogs plan to travel to Barbados.
The team also concludes its season with a competition against alumni for the Walbridge Wager, which is a trophy named for a former South African cap-tain of the team that features the head
of a Cape Buffalo. During the alumni weekend, the team’s top players face o! against a group of younger alums while less experienced players take on an older crowd, players who might be up to 70 years old.
“You have guys with humongous beards and top hats,” Lesnewich said.
In games such as these unlike the upcoming Vegas tournament, the main focus is on camaraderie rather than competition.
The balance of serious competitions and time-honored traditions has made rugby a defining feature of the members’ time at Yale.
“It’s sort of just been an awesome experience at Yale,” Morse said. “The last four years, by far the thing I’m going to look back on most is playing rugby. I can’t imagine life at Yale without it. I think a huge portion of the team feels that way.”
Yale opens the Las Vegas Invitational with matches against Weber State and Indiana on Thursday at 9:40 a.m. and 12:40 p.m., respectively. The Elis will then faceo! against defending cham-pion Central Washington on Friday at 9:20 a.m.
Contact MARIA GUARDADO at [email protected] .
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com PAGE 13
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS RICKY WILLIAMS
Williams, who was an All-Pro running back, announced that he will retire from pro football after 11 seasons of play. Williams, who was the Heisman Trophy winner in 1998, played in 147 NFL games.
M. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 14
Rugby tackles Nevada
JOEY ROSENBERG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Next season, the men’s basketball team will compete in Nevada, Austlin Morgan ’13’s home state.
Elis compete outside Ivies
We try to schedule comparable teams, teams we think will be successful in their conferences.
WILLIAM COURTNEYHead coach, Cornell men’s basketball
Bulldogs take shots at titles
IAN PIKUL
Rugby, which finished sixth in the Ivy League last year, will travel to Barbados this spring.
M. RUGBY FROM PAGE 14
From the title perspective, we’re ahead of last year’s pace. The field hockey team, which broke through after 30 years to claim its second title in school history, joined volleyball as fall, 2011 champions. By Feb. 7, 2011, Yale held one Ivy title. As of Feb. 8, 2012, we hold two.
Now I know what you’re thinking: that stat means nothing when there’s so much work to be done. And you’re right: project-ing all of last year’s champions to repeat is perhaps not wise. But it’s not completely unrealistic.
Let’s go step-by-step start-ing with squash. The men’s team is currently ranked No. 1 nationally, and the women No. 2. Not No. 1 in the Ivy League — the country. Though the men dropped a somewhat surpris-ing match to then-No. 3 Prince-ton last weekend, it’s important to note that All American super-star No. 2 Hywel Robinson ’13 was injured for that showdown, which caused some last-minute shifts in the Yale ladder heading into a tough road match. Either way, the loss means the Bull-dogs need some help from Cor-nell and Columbia, Princeton’s final Ivy League opponents, if they’re to grab a conference title. Even if they don’t get that help, however, a national title is on the table, and that epic win over then-No.1-for-13-years Trin-ity will be remembered for many seasons to come.
The women are in better shape to repeat. Millie Tomlinson ’14 hasn’t lost a college match yet, and last year’s national individual champion keeps blowing through her competition, leading the undefeated Bulldogs into their toughest match of the season this weekend against No. 1 Harvard. The Crimson present the big-gest obstacle between Yale and another Ivy League title, so this Sunday’s matchup at the Brady Squash Center will go along way towards determining whether or not the women’s squash team can add to this year’s title total.
Now, on to golf. On the men’s side, the Bulldogs return three of their top-four finishers at last year’s Ivy League Champi-onships, where the team domi-nated the field by 20 strokes to take home the title. Admittedly, the player not returning is a big deal: 2010-’11 captain and All-Ivy pick Tom McCarthy ’11. But even without McCarthy, Yale closed out its fall season with an impressive seventh-place show-ing at the Northeast Invitational (four spots ahead of last year’s finish), bolstered by the solid play of William Davenport ’15. He turned in a strong fall for Yale, and should help ease the loss of McCarthy.
The women, too, lost a great force in their 2010-’11 captain, Alyssa Roland ’11, who was an individual Ivy League Champion as a sophomore. But the celes-tial sophomore duo of Seo Hee Moon, who has seven wins in her young career, and Sun Gyoung Park, Yale’s top finisher at the NCAA regional last year, should position the Bulldogs to make a run at another title. Harvard and Columbia have bolstered their rosters with some freshmen tal-ent, but Yale will be a formidable
opponent in its title defense. Women’s tennis has reached
its highest ranking of 2012 this week, No. 35, thanks in large part to an upset win over then-No. 21 Notre Dame and a near-miss against No. 10 Michigan. As scary as it is for the rest of the Ivy League, the Bulldogs look bet-ter than last year — and are still improving — which bodes well for their title prospects.
But beyond teams that won last season, there are others that could make a run at titles to push Yale to that eight-win mark or beyond in 2012. The men’s fenc-ing team, for one, dropped a heartbreaking title match against Harvard last year by one point. The No. 10 Bulldogs get their chance at revenge this weekend as they host this year’s Ancient Eight Championships. Fencing is a sport to watch. The women have also been dominating of late, turning in convincing wins to build momentum into Satur-day’s matches.
Men’s lacrosse is always a team to watch, especially consider-ing it comes into the 2012 season ranked 13th in the Inside Lacrosse national poll. The Elis will fea-ture two Major League Lacrosse Draftees this season — Greg Mahony ’12 and 2011 All-Ameri-can Matt Gibson ’12 — who were drafted last weekend.
Yale baseball, which finished second in its division last year, will undoubtedly be hurt by the loss of a senior class that featured first baseman Trey Rallis ’11, last year’s Ivy League Player of the Year. But with a ton of talent in the freshmen class — particularly on the mound — and a lot of tal-ented underclassmen in general, the Bulldogs could surprise some people in the Ivy League this year.
Oh, and look out for Yale soft-ball: just saying …
Finally, it’s way too early to lose track of the winter sports just yet. Men’s basketball is just a game (okay, a win against No. 21 Harvard) out of first place, and gets another shot at the Crim-son, albeit in Cambridge, Feb. 18. Win out, and the Elis will have a share in the Ivy crown and a play-o! game with Harvard to decide the bid to the tourney.
At 4–2 in conference play, women’s basketball is right in the hunt as well. The team may need some help around the league to chase down 5–0 Princeton, but Harvard (4–1) is well within reach, especially considering the Bulldogs have another trip through the Ivies remaining.
Finally, there’s men’s hockey. Their quest for an Ivy League title, though bumpier than Yale fans, used to success, might be willing to tolerate, is far from over. The Bulldogs sit behind just two Ancient Eight teams entering this weekend: Har-vard (four points up) and Cornell (nine points up). Yale plays both of those teams in its remaining schedule. Keep in mind that a win in either of those games makes up three points on either team, and the Bulldogs can still pull a title o!. It’s not over for Yale hockey just yet.
In other words, look out for Yale sports in the coming months, and start counting the Ivy titles as they come in. We’re ahead of schedule in some ways, behind in others, but never-theless poised to make another push at Yale conference title history. And regardless of how many Championships come to New Haven in 2012, the fact that Bulldog teams are anywhere near duplicating last year’s his-toric success reveals a trend that means eight won’t be Yale’s high-est title total for long.
Contact CHELSEA JANES at [email protected] .
Sevens is only 14 minutes long, and anything can happen. You get a couple of bounces your way, and you can be knocking o! the defending champions, no problem.
ROB MORSE ’12
YALE TEAMS HAVE THE POTENTIAL
TO BRING IN MORE IVY TITLES THAN
EVER BEFORE.
SPORTS IN CONTENTION FOR 2012 IVY TITLESMEN’S
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BY MARIA GUARDADOSTAFF REPORTER
Many people travel to Las Vegas in hopes of hitting the jackpot. This week, the Yale men’s rugby team will also head to Las Vegas looking to win big — on the pitch.
On Wednesday, 12 members of
the team will travel west to com-pete in the Las Vegas Invitational, a national sevens tournament that brings together 32 collegiate rugby teams from across the country each year. The competition is a Colle-giate Rugby Championship quali-fier. The winner of the tournament earns the last slot in the USA Sevens CRC tournament, in which the top 16 collegiate rugby programs faceo! for the national championship title.
Sitting in a room on the second
floor of the “historic” and “charm-ing” rugby house on 17 Edgewood Ave., team members Nick Finger ’12, Rob Morse ’12 and John Lesnewich ’13 said the team has one clear goal for the tournament.
“We’re going there to win,” Fin-ger said. “Obviously it’s going to be challenging, but we’re just trying to win as many games as possible.”
“We wouldn’t go if we were trying
BY CHARLES CONDRO AND JOSEPH ROSENBERGSTAFF REPORTERS
The men’s basketball team did not spend New Year’s Eve more than 1,000 miles away from New Haven with-out purpose. On Dec. 31, the team traveled to Gainesville, Fla., to take on No. 7 Florida in a nonconference game. Although the Elis expectedly fell, 90–70, the final score was of little importance. The Bulldogs scheduled the game knowing full well they were the underdogs.
This year, Ivy League teams took the court against opponents from five of the six major conferences. Yale matched up with Seton Hall of the Big East, the ACC’s Wake Forest and SEC power-house Florida. Penn faced Duke of the ACC and Pitt of the Big East. Harvard took part in an ESPN2-televised game with the Big East’s UConn. The Crim-son and the Princeton Tigers even defeated the No. 17 Florida State Sem-inoles. There are reasons why these Ancient Eight hoopsters end up on the court with some of the best basketball teams in the country.
Mid-major coaches try to assemble a balanced schedule to prepare their teams for conference play. Put simply, playing good teams can only improve a program.
“The first thing is that we want to challenge ourselves,” Yale head coach
James Jones said. “We want to play some people outside the box that are going to try to expose weaknesses … so we can see the kind of issues we have that we can’t see in practice.”
Nonconference games are not all marquee matchups, however. Ivy League teams also play Division III minnows. Yale demolished Lyndon State 101–37 and downed St. Joseph’s of Long Island 101–86. Cornell head coach William Courtney said that he schedules Division III schools because it adds a home game to the nonconfer-ence schedule.
Nonconference schedules are not only filled with extremes. Courtney and Jones said they also play against oppo-sition closer to their level.
“We try to schedule comparable teams, teams we think will be success-ful in their conferences,” Courtney said. “We try not to schedule teams that are not so good so that we don’t get a false sense of ourselves.”
Coaches schedule with the another factor in mind as well: money. In order to raise funding for the program, teams play in “guarantee” games against major teams on the road. In exchange for playing away, mid-major teams are compensated by their adversaries.
Guarantee games di!er from “series” games where teams agree to play at both locations. Yale Assistant Athletic Director Tim Bennett said that in order to get prominent schools to play series
THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF IVY LEAGUE TITLES YALE TEAMS HAVE WON EACH YEAR OVER THE PAST DECADE. Eli teams won seven championships last year, their best performance since 1989-’90, but won just a single title as recently as 2007-’08.
STAT OF THE DAY 3.3
“The first thing is that we want to challenge ourselves. We want to play some people out-side the box.”
JAMES JONESHEAD COACH, M. BASKETBALL
HALEY WESSELS ’13ELECTED VOLLEYBALL CAPTAINWessels, a middle hitter, was named captain of the women’s volleyball team on Tuesday. She will lead Yale in two o!-season tournaments this spring. The Bulldogs will face Boston College on March 24 and then four teams. including Ivy foe Columbia, on April 21.
MORGAN TRAINA ’15ECAC ROOKIE OF THE WEEKTraina, a member of the gymnastics team, was honored after excelling this past weekend at New Hampshire. She earned third place in the all-around competiton with a score of 38.1, and finished second overall on the uneven bars. She was first for Yale on beam.
NCAA BKentucky 78Florida 58
NCAA BMaryland 64Clemson 62
NBAIndiana 104Utah 99
NHLN.J. Devils 1N.Y. Rangers 0
NHLSt. Louis 3Ottawa 1
YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
SEE M. BASKETBALL PAGE 13
SEE M. RUGBY PAGE 13
MEN’S RUGBY
M E N ’ S B A S K E T B A L L
Scheduling non-Ivy games a puzzle
JOEY ROSENBERG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The men’s basketball team took on Hartford in a non-conference game on November 29 and won 74–69.
YDN
Men’s club rugby will compete in a sevens tournament — seven players per team, seven minutes per half — in Las Vegas this week.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
This could be one of the best years in Yale sports history.
Tragedy and off-field issues have distracted from a year loaded with success and potential — and right-fully so — but with statements made, investigations underway and the facts as straight as anyone can hope to get them, it’s time to shift the focus back to the games.
Do so, and you’ll see what I mean: this really could be one of the best years in Yale sports history. And I’m not just saying that out of my sometimes unre-alistic but always well-intended Yale-superfan optimism. The stats don’t lie.
In the 55 years since the Ivy League began play in sports other than football, Yale’s high-water mark for conference-championship success has been eight. The Bulldogs won eight titles in a single academic year twice in that span, once in the first season of Ancient Eight play, 1956-’57, once in the 1980-’81 season.
Yale has brought home seven titles in an academic year just four times in that nearly half-a-century span. The first came in the 1958-’59 year, the second in the 1978-’79 season, and the third in the 1989-’90 season. The fourth seven-win season was, you may be sur-prised to hear, last year.
Now, keep in mind that the first women’s Ivy League Championships were held in the 1973-’74 season, and the gravity of last year’s success grows.
That year, the only women’s sport in competition was crew (title won by the now-incorporated Radcli!e), and it would take until the 1976-’77 sea-son for even six women’s champion-ships to be contested, when basketball, gymnastics, ice hockey, swimming and track and field were added to the mix.
Take that 1976-’77 year, then, as the first that the Ivy League Champi-onships landscape began to resemble its current self, and last year’s success was, arguably, the fourth-best season in Yale’s history in the Ivy League.
Surprising? Perhaps. But only because last year’s success wasn’t any-thing out of the ordinary. The titles were spread among teams we expected to win (men’s ice hockey, volleyball) and teams we — rather unfairly — for-get win so regularly (the squashes, golf teams, and so on). Women’s tennis’s run to a share of the Ivy title was cer-tainly memorable, but not so improb-able that anyone could be prompted to say Yale had overachieved. The Bull-dogs’ historic success last year was the product of teams for whom success has become, quite simply, unsurprising.
As such, this success was likely underappreciated, and few people probably realize the unique position in which the athletic department finds itself this season.
CHELSEAJANES
SEE SUCCESS PAGE 13
Season’s success to play out at Ivies
Elis to compete in Vegas