Yale Daily News — November 21, 2025

A GAME WITH PLAYOFF STAKES

BY BRODY GILKISON STAFF REPORTER

No. 25-ranked Yale (7–2, 5–1 Ivy) will host No. 10 Harvard (9–0, 6–0 Ivy) on Saturday in both teams’ final game of the regular season for the 141st playing of The Game.

A season ago, head coach Tony Reno led his team into Harvard Stadium and took down the No. 17-ranked Harvard Crimson. This year, Reno will be leading his team against an even tougher, though familiar, opponent in what may be the highest stakes Yale-Harvard game in recent memory, thanks to a new opportunity to make the playoffs. Due to a new rule change, Ivy League football teams are now allowed to compete for a national championship for the first time since the Ivy Group Agreement was created 80 years ago. The

SEE THE GAME PAGE 4

Academic freedom tailgate planned

BY LEO NYBERG

CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

While most tailgates at the Yale-Harvard game on Saturday will have beer, burgers and dogs, two alumni groups — one from Yale and one from Harvard — are together hosting a tailgate with lemonade, snacks and a call to action for both schools’ alumni.

Stand Up for Yale and Crimson Courage are alumni groups founded

last spring after President Donald Trump froze billions in federal grant funds to Harvard. Both groups pushed their university presidents, Yale’s Maurie McInnis and Harvard’s Alan Garber, to protect academic freedom and maintain independence from the federal government. At their joint tailgate Saturday, the groups plan to continue pushing their message.

“I think it’s brilliant,” Gregg Gonsalves ’11 GRD ’17, a Yale epi-

Hush was to avoid cuts, McInnis said

BY ISOBEL MCCLURE AND JAEHA JANG STAFF REPORTERS

In the early months of the current Trump administration, University President Maurie McInnis hosted at least two spring meetings with faculty members, in which administrators indicated that Yale would refrain from substantial public commentary in an attempt to avoid President Donald Trump’s ire, according to three professors who attended two of the meetings.

Daniel HoSang, an American Studies professor and the president of Yale’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he attended the first meeting, held on Feb. 24. A second meeting was held on May 2, he said. HoSang recalled that administrators suggested that refraining from a bolder public response was intended to reduce the risk of attracting attention from the federal government.

“I think early on, there was a hope among many faculty at Yale, and our chapter included, that our university and many others would

be more public and forthright in condemning the actions,” HoSang said in a September interview. He said that in both small-group and town hall meetings, administrators conveyed “that their calculation is that there’s a risk in being too publicly provocative in ways that would put, in their terms, a target on the institution’s back.”

McInnis did not confirm or deny the News’ questions about whether she made those statements in the spring meetings with faculty.

“As a practice, I keep the discussions I have in meetings private,” McInnis wrote in a Tuesday email. She added that in the spring faculty meetings, she spoke to professors about her goal “to uphold Yale’s mission, including advancing our teaching, our research and clinical care, and our humanist and artistic traditions, and keeping a Yale education affordable to all.”

Tisa Wenger — a Yale Divinity School professor who attended the second meeting — echoed

SEE MCINNIS PAGE 5

demiology professor who has worked with Stand Up for Yale, said about the tailgate. “Harvard and Yale alums are not together in too many places in high density, except in the context of The Game, so it’s a perfect opportunity.”

The tailgate will have a tent, stickers and a sign about academic freedom. Purple lemonade — a blend of blue and crimson — will be served

SEE TAILGATE PAGE 4

BY

KADE GAJDUSEK AND CATHERINE CHENG STAFF REPORTER AND

REPORTER

CONTRIBUTING

Shutting down a block of College Street, roughly 700 postdoctoral researchers, students and union organizers gathered on Wednesday evening to support the addition of postdoctoral scholars to Yale’s graduate workers union, UNITE HERE Local 33. The rally was organized by Local 33 and attended by members of UNITE HERE Locals 34 and 35 — Yale’s clerical and technical workers union and service and maintenance workers union, respectively — as well as by advocacy groups New Haven Rising and Students Unite Now. Local officials, state representatives and Gov. Ned Lamont SOM ’80 spoke throughout the rally.

By the time the speeches started, a supermajority of Yale’s postdoctoral

scholars had already signed union authorization cards declaring their support for the effort, according to Adam Waters, the head of Local 33. Speakers and rallygoers argued that membership in the union would give postdoctoral scholars increased job security, improved medical insurance and clearer avenues for reporting grievances.

“You might be wondering, ‘Why unionize now, during such a turbulent political time, when funding is already under threat?’ That’s exactly why we need a union, now more than ever,” Claire Laxton, a postdoctoral associate in immunobiology, said to the crowd.

In the past year, the Trump administration has terminated or frozen thousands of grants from the National Science Foundation or the

For spring courses, Yale looks

BY JOLYNDA WANG AND GILLIAN PEIHE FENG CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS

At least five courses about Yale or the role of universities will be offered in the upcoming spring semester.

The courses — some specific to Yale, others covering higher education more broadly — come at a time when faculty and administrators have identified increasing threats to the University and higher education, such as declining public trust and the loss of government funding.

“There is real value to knowing the history of the place you’re in,” professor Daniel Botsman, who teaches “Yale and Japan,” said in an interview. “I think it’s a way of changing our perceptions of what it is to be an elite institution.”

The five courses cover the historical and philosophical groundings for Yale and for higher education more broadly. Professors noted the importance of looking inward

through studying universities, referencing growing public critique of Yale as an elite institution. Two new courses will be offered come the spring. The history department will introduce “Trust et Veritas: The Public Legitimacy of Universities,” while “What Was the University?” is crosslisted between humanities, religious studies and history of science and medicine. The courses will join the existing courses “Yale and Japan,” “Yale and America: Selected Topics in Social and Cultural History” and “What is the University?”

According to professor Jay Gitlin, who has taught “Yale and America” since 2010, the University previously offered fewer courses about Yale.

According to students and their emails to him, Gitlin said in an interview, seniors approaching

Tied to Epstein, Summers quits role

BY ASHER BOISKIN AND OLIVIA CYRUS STAFF REPORTERS

Larry Summers will no longer work on the Yale Budget Lab’s advisory board after newly released emails revealed that he remained in close contact with Jeffrey Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction of sex offenses involving a minor.

Summers, a former Harvard president and U.S. treasury secretary, announced Monday evening that he will step back from his public engagements following the publication of emails that showed exchanges between Summers and Epstein until July 5, 2019. Summers’ information was removed from the lab’s website by Monday evening.

“Larry Summers has indicated that he is withdrawing from his public commitments, including as a member of the Budget Lab advisory group,” Suzanne Pinto, a spokesperson for the Budget Lab, wrote to the News.

Yale Law professor Natasha Sarin ’11, the lab’s president and co-founder, and Martha Gimbel, its executive director and co-founder, did not immediately respond to the News’ request for comment.

On Monday, Summers told Politico that his ongoing contact with Epstein caused harm and left

This Day in Yale History, 2002

November 21, 2002 / Local young Democrats raise support

By Erica Youngstrom

Despite recent elections that favored Republicans nationwide, some New Haven Democrats are not wasting any time in preparing for the next round.

About 70 local Democrats gathered at Neat Lounge on Temple Street Wednesday night. They were there in support of the Greater New Haven Young Democrats, or GNHYD, a group which seeks mainly to increase political participation among people between the ages of 18 and 34 and to support young candidates and raise political awareness.

Guests included Democratic politicians from various parts of Connecticut as well as community members and Yale students interested in the GNYD. While the event was partly a fund-raiser, its main goal was to provide an opportunity for guests to network and learn about the organization’s mission.

Clues

counterpart

32. Buddy

35. Golf’s Ernie

37. Chicago’s honey lover?*

41. Sulfuric, e.g.

43. Billy ___ Williams

45. Landlocked Asian country

46. Most weekend baseball games

47. New York’s gentle monster?*

50. Try out

52. Rhone tributary

55. feeling, maybe

56. Long-term goal of Sam Altman, others

57. Surveillance org.

58. Uncontaminated

59. Tampa’s drunken swindler?*

66. Shakespeare’s fairy queen

69. Poet’s preposition

70. German luxury car

71. First try, perhaps

72. Some girders

75. Moves in the spotlight?

76. Short pants

77. Prognosticates

79. Eastern ruler

80. Era indicator

82. Play part

83. New Orleans’ disillusioned priest?*

88. Lake bordering Cleveland

89. Accused, in brief

90. Prior to 91. “Yes, ____!”

95. JFK predecessor

96. Small, slippery slowpoke

98. Dallas’ Searcher?*

102. Baseball Hall of Famer ___Wee Reese

103. Angel Reese lg.

104. Apr. season

105. Type of twister, perhaps 106. Minnesota’s larger-than-life leader?* 112. Antonio or Diego?

114. Ab’s neighbor

Frost

Litigator

Number two 119. Dove’s call

Gillette options 123. Unreal fall competition? (And a hint to all the starred clues)

Big bird?

German seaport

Play like George Harrison, say

German article

Hundred:

Behind the Headline

By Brody Gilkison

This summer, when a new rule that would allow Ivy League teams to play in the postseason passed, I knew this football season would be a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. With the mass exodus of graduating seniors and transfers, the team looked very different from last year’s. The excitement was palpable among some of the newer players right from the jump. Instead of the same old goals of playing for a conference championship and beating the team from the north, Team 152 would have a chance to make history, and these players had zero doubt in their ability to accomplish their goals.

In every game, I hear players say they’re playing “Yale vs Yale.” The idea is that as long as they execute everything correctly and control what they can control, no opposing team, no matter their ranking, will stop them from reaching their full potential. When Saturday rolls around, it’ll still be Yale vs Yale for Team 152, and with some luck, the ‘Dogs may come out on top.

Corrections

• An article on Nov. 14 about the Yale police chief departing to lead

police department misstated the organization Yale recently established a new contract with. The University recently established a new contract with the Yale Police Benevolent Association, the police union, not the Yale Police Department.

BY JACK BERRIEN

Brit’s “Right?”

Off-roader, briefly

Like messy paint

Queen’s” _____ Ga Ga”

Hersey’s town

Like Catherine Zeta-Jones

Prominent person of

GUEST

COLUMNIST TOM DAWBER

Restore summer funding for students who need it

Yale College’s decision to combine the International Study and Summer Experience Awards into a single one-time-only grant is deeply misguided and will harm the most vulnerable Yalies: those who receive financial aid.

For an institution that claims a commitment to equity, this policy change is incredibly inequitable. While the new policy will impact the more than 50 percent of Yale College students who receive financial aid, it will have a disproportionate effect on Yale’s poorest students.

I receive financial aid, but I’m not the student who will be hurt by this. I’ll still use my Summer Experience Grant to study abroad summer 2026. If I find an opportunity for which I would have used the SEA, I can find a way to make it work. I’m an Eli Whitney student, and I still work full-time. I have good credit, and I live in a two-income household. Without the SEA, I can fund an internship or another opportunity with a loan or by trimming the household budget somewhere. It won’t be easy, but it will be possible.

The same isn’t true for hundreds of other Yalies. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds, students from single-parent families, students who grew up in poverty — these students might not be able to find a way to “make it work.” There is no “trimming the household budget” in a household that’s already stretched to the breaking point. And expecting these students to take out student loans to fund professional development opportunities runs counter to Yale’s goal of graduating debt-free undergraduates.

When I arrived here, it quickly became clear that “Yale Summer” is very much a thing. Conversations at the end of spring semester are dominated by, “What are you doing this summer?” and the beginning of fall is filled with, “What did you do this summer?”

The answers are as diverse as Yale’s student body. Yalies can earn language credit studying in Europe, or volunteer for nonprofits whose causes they’re passionate about. They can conduct field research in Bhutan or work in a congressman’s office.The ISA and SEA go a long way in providing equal opportunities to all Yale students, to ensure that not only students lucky enough to be born wealthy have access to these experiences.

The ISA and SEA serve two different purposes. Study abroad is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend weeks in an unfamiliar part of the world and grow as an individual. By contrast, the SEA gives students an opportunity for professional development, to

explore an internship that would otherwise be inaccessible due to financial constraints.

Asking Yale’s leastresourced students to choose only one of these opportunities is unfair. It will deepen the divide between the haves and the have-nots here. It slams the door in the faces of the very students who stand to benefit the most from both of these opportunities. Forcing 19- and 20-year-old students to choose between personal growth and professional developmentis cruel.

Had I attended Yale as a traditional undergraduate instead of in my 30s, married and with a career, I would have been one of Yale’s poorest students, too. I know how it feels to ask a single parent who is already doing the most they can to do a little bit more. I’ve had that conversation.

I’ve been told, “No, I know it’s a great opportunity, but there’s just no way I can make it work.”

More Yale students and parents will have to have this painful conversation because of the new summer funding plan. I call on Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis to reconsider this shameful policy change. Students who are on full financial aid should still have access to funding for a second summer opportunity. Yale recognizes the financial constraints on these students’ families, even footing the costs for them to attend Bulldog Days. Where is that consideration in this decision?

Another option is to treat the new Summer Experience Grant as an account for each student who receives financial aid. Set it at $18,540, a three-percent inflation increase of the 2025 maximum International Study Award, and allow students to use that money how they see fit. If a student chooses a summer abroad that uses their full allocation, that’s it. But if they opt for a less expensive summer abroad, allow them to use the remaining balance to fund a second summer opportunity.

I’m cognizant of the challenges facing Yale in today’s political climate. I know the endowment isn’t a piggy bank that can be broken open when funding sources disappear. Cuts need to be made and sacrifice is inevitable. But this cut demands a sacrifice only from Yale’s most vulnerable students. I reject the notion that there isn’t plenty of other fat to cut that would spread the hurt around a little more.

TOM DAWBER is a junior Eli Whitney student in Pierson College studying history. He can be reached at tom.dawber@yale.edu.

GUEST COLUMNIST

JAMES BERGER

Jonathan Haidt hit one target, missed two

I was glad to be present in the packed space of Battell Chapel on Wednesday to hear renowned social psychologist and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt ’85 deliver the Presidential Lecture. Haidt made valuable points on the damaging effects of social media. He presented results of empirical studies showing real harm to young people’s mental health and educational performance over the past 15 years. Haidt also gave students strategies for maintaining well-being in this technologically saturated time: Get off your phones, read books, be intellectually curious and explore new subjects.

All to the good. Yet I felt the talk felt short in two significant ways.

First, it did not take history into account. His critique of the new media technologies seemed to assume that before Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, America had been a more-or-less harmonious, civil democratic polity. Of course, there were disagreements, but people of good will could debate without acrimony or censorship and ultimately reach consensus. Haidt’s scenario also assumed that all people were permitted to participate in the civil discourse, and none were excluded.

But this can’t possibly be true. Our history includes an actual civil war fought over the question of slavery. Nor did this conflict end with the Union’s victory. Breakdowns of respectful political discourse occurred during the Red Scares following the first World War and during the McCarthyism following the second. The divisions in the 1960s over civil rights and the Vietnam War were deep, bitter and lasting. One might argue our current social conflicts and the rise of Trumpism have their roots in the 1960s and, perhaps, even in postCivil War Reconstruction. And all of that without social media!

We can speak of a broad New Deal consensus from the end of World War II lasting until the late 1960s, to which even Republican President

Dwight Eisenhower concurred. But in the context of what went before and what has come after, perhaps this time of consensus was an anomaly, not a norm. It is sad to think so, but there is a lot that is sad these days.

Likewise, attacks on universities and education in general have a long history. High schools in the early 20th century were criticized by business interests for being inefficient, concentrating too much on humanities at the expense of more practical vocational training. Similar attacks were lodged in the 1980s, and these attacks then combined with more ideological assaults on changing university curricula. There were “culture wars” and “canon wars” and attacks on so-called “tenured radicals” — another instance of renewed conflicts of the 1960s.

All this is context for considering Haidt’s criticisms of higher education today. He seemed most upset by the phenomenon of “wokeness” and particularly by attempts at censorship by the political Left. I share his feelings about shouting down speakers. Anyone invited to speak at a university should be allowed to speak. Those who disagree can then speak in response.

But Haidt said nothing about the widespread efforts to suppress accurate accounts of American history because they are not flattering enough to some people’s brittle and narrow ideas of patriotism. He said nothing about the banning of books. He did not share his views on whether the ethnic and gender studies programs now under such attack by conservatives possess the intellectual integrity that he rightly sees as essential to the university’s mission.

The university must pursue truth, he told us. Quite so. The pursuit of justice, however, he claimed is not within its purview. But the pursuit of truth is not antithetical to the pursuit

of Justice. The bulk of the Western intellectual tradition does not regard it so. Truth and justice do not always fit easily — perhaps the controversies over “wokeness” demonstrate such friction; but, in the Humanities and even the social sciences, truth and justice cannot be separated without grave injury to both.

The second area where Haidt’s analysis of technology lacked dimension was the economics of the new technologies. The harmful effects on people’s psyches and on our social-political soul that Haidt effectively described do not have neutral, purely technical origins or goals. They are instruments of enormous wealth and the power that comes from that wealth. It is not just technology that influences our minds. It is actual people: Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Ellison, Bezos. If social media technologies have the effects and consequences that Haidt outlines — and I would have trouble arguing that they do not — these technooligarchs are the men who benefit in wealth and power. In this sense, Haidt is not an alarmist; if anything, he gravely underestimates the dangers of these technologies in how they concentrate information, money and power.

So, finally, I commend Jonathan Haidt for his research and for the good advice he imparted to the students. Get off your devices; read books; write meaningful prose — without artificial intelligence! But, still, to paraphrase Horatio’s comment to Hamlet, “There needs no social psychologist, my lord, come from NYU to tell us this.” What we need is less ultimately evasive “techno-determinism” and more clear historical and economic understanding of our current political, educational and technological crises.

JAMES BERGER is senior lecturer in American Studies and English. He can be reached at james.berger@yale.edu.

I recently transferred to Yale from a two-year college in California called Deep Springs. The college is designed to entrust its students with, in the founder’s own words, “grave responsibilities” and the “broad discretionary powers” to fulfill them. As one of these powers, students determine the course of seminars. No one raises their hands and professors speak minimally.

The class is led by its attendees. The result is a lot of wasted time. Students waffle and flounder and frustrate each other and themselves. I think seminar classes at Yale would do well to waste more time in this way. They should let students talk each other in more circles and mislead eachother at a greater frequency, under the guidance of a professor who bails them out less often.

Why, after all, should colleges teach seminars in the first place?

A story from my first year at Deep Springs helped me answer this question for myself.

In a Friday morning literature class just over halfway through the term, the conversation slowed, paused, then came to a halt. It was normal in this class to let a silence fester. On this particular day, though, breaks had been frequent. We struggled to find a uniform point to interrogate and failed to speak collaboratively with each other. Around an hour into the 90 minute session, with just 30 minutes left in what was most students’ last academic commitment of the week, the professor excused himself and left. He said something I don’t quite remember — but to the effect of “well, if that’s all…” — and slung his bag over his shoulder to go.

I don’t think this story is a good general model for classroom

leadership. I do think it reminds us what seminars are supposed to do. The idea is not that seminars are more efficient than lectures. Nobody would claim that students can teach each other the material better than professors can. My professor left to remind us that our college education isn’t about him. Colleges should teach seminars because at their best, they force students to situate their devotion to the material in the context of their devotion to each other. In a seminar you should learn about a subject — Shakespeare or fossil fuels or demand elasticity — and you should simultaneously learn how to properly attend to this subject in a room full of people who are also eager to. The goal, after all, is not merely to know a great deal about Shakespeare or fossil fuels or demand elasticity. The goal is to know about a subject, and moreover know how to best contribute to discourses which pertain to that subject. People who are only knowledgeable don’t do great things. Those who do great things are knowledgeable, but also have a sense of how their knowledge figures into the world around them.

A good seminar simulates this project. Students have to decide, in a moment when their peers also want to contribute, whether or not their own thought is the most timely one. They may have to temporarily take up an idea that, in their eyes, departs from the text, because the integrity of the text is not the only thing they’re beholden to in the seminar room. In a healthy seminar, they are just as beholden to the peer that made the point.

I think that raising hands in seminars — a standard practice at Yale — prevents students from

gleaning what they ought to from their class time. In a moderated seminar space, the likelihood of a comment being taken up is no longer a function of its quality, or even of the rapport its speaker has with the room. Its contents are only important as a measure for how long everyone else will have to wait. At the end of the day, the worst experience one might have in a moderated space is a boring one. The floor for the conversation is still tenably high. In an open conversation, the class can be properly wasted. Interruptions, tangents, hurt feelings and antagonisms can fester and students can leave and go to sleep frustrated. But it is no longer possible for students to disentangle themselves from their dissatisfactions with a class. Each critique levied against a seminar is in a part a self-critique. This kind of involvement encourages a stewardship of the classroom that is presently not asked of students.

One more story from Deep Springs comes to mind: One morning during my second year, a professor sent a last-minute email to cancel class due to an emergency. Four students missed the email, showed up and talked about the book for an hour and a half. By most metrics, Deep Springs’ classes are less efficient than Yale’s. They teach fewer things in more time. Yet Deep Springs students would not measure their education by the amount they have learned. They’d measure it instead by how well it figures into the conversations unfolding around them.

JACOB HARMS is a sophomore in Trumbull College studying English. He can be reached at jacob.harms@yale.edu.

FROM THE FRONT

“We must find the time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” JOHN

THE GAME FROM PAGE 1

Bulldogs, with an NCAA-recognized 18 college football national championships, the most in the nation’s history, would have a chance to play their way towards earning another one for the first time in 98 years.

While the Crimson currently hold a one-game lead in the conference standings, a win this weekend could secure the Bulldogs a share of the Ivy League title. However, in addition to tying Harvard in the standings, a Yale win would decide the headto-head tiebreaker and secure an automatic qualification to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

As soon as kickoff happens at noon in the Yale Bowl, all of the rankings, metrics and outside noise go out the window. The Bulldogs could lose and bring Team 152’s season to a close. Or, Yale could overcome the odds once more and win their fourth straight game against the Crimson, punching their first-ever ticket to the FCS Playoffs and living to play another day.

Last year, dazzling plays by David Pantelis ’25, Josh Pitsenberger ’26 and Abu Kamara ’27 helped to seal the win. This time, Reno will still be relying on known stars Pitsenberger and Kamara, but some new faces will also be looking to etch their names in school history. Although not unfamiliar with The Game, quarterback Dante Reno ’28 will be playing in the rivalry for the first time, and he will be relying on his breakout star receivers Nico Brown ’25 and Jaxton Santiago ’28 to go make big plays for the Bulldogs on the offensive side of the ball.

On defense, some new faces have been thrust into bigger roles this year, and they have shone. Defensive lineman Zeke Larry ’27 has quickly become a star this season, leading the Ivy League in sacks with 9.5. Linebackers Inumidun Ayo-Duro -

jaiye ’25 and Phoenix Grant ’27 have also been key in the defense’s success this year, leading the team in tackles and disrupting opposing offenses all season long. Together, the Bulldogs are well-equipped on the defensive end when it comes to handling Harvard’s playmakers. There is no doubt that the Crimson have dangerous talent on both sides of the ball. One key player for them this year has been quarterback Jaden Craig.

Rival alums to host

joint tailgate Playoff hopes ride on 141st playing of The Game

Craig, a senior, has thrown for 2,456 yards and 21 touchdowns through nine games this season while only having been picked off five times. Yet, despite all of his impressive statistics, he has yet to beat Yale in the previous three matchups. With Yale’s top-10 FCS defense, the Harvard quarterback will have his hands full as he looks to pick up his first win against the Elis. A large part of the Crimson’s success can also be attributed to

TAILGATE FROM PAGE 1

in lieu of alcoholic beverages, Miles Rapoport, the co-chair of Crimson Courage and former Connecticut secretary of state, told the News.

While tailgating may be an unconventional way to organize alumni and pressure college administrations, Rapoport said it’s an opportunity to reach alumni who might not otherwise focus on academic freedom or independence.

“The assault on higher education has made many people who are not politically active upset and ready to take action,” Rapoport said. “We think it’s a way of broadening the support that Crimson Courage and Stand Up for Yale have.”

Looking forward, Stand Up for Yale and Crimson Courage plan to send a joint letter to the presidents and fellows of both universities, continuing their calls for the schools to preserve academic freedom and reject Trump’s proposed compact, which would offer preferential treatment for grant funding if schools adhere to his priorities. The groups plan to gather signatures for the letter at the tailgate.

Stand Up for Yale wrote a letter to McInnis and other administrators last spring calling for “a courageous stance in defending higher education against assaults by the federal government.” Over 6,000 alumni signed the letter. Crimson Courage has around 18,000 people on their mailing list and is staffed entirely by volunteers, according to Evelyn Kim, the group’s communications director.

“Crimson Courage kind of came up out of nowhere,” Patty Nolan SOM ’88, a co-chair of Crimson Courage, said. She said there have been a variety of alumni efforts to encourage Harvard administrators to stand up for the university’s independence after Trump clawed back funding. Crimson Courage was founded to organize those efforts into a single group.

Tailgate organizers are hopeful that Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 will join the tailgate. Kathleen McWilliams, Blumenthal’s communications director, said on Tuesday that the senator’s schedule for this weekend had not yet been confirmed.

Nolan said organizers invited Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont — both Harvard alumni — to the tailgate, but both are unable to attend.

“The only way we’re going to be able to fight for all of higher education is to band together,” Kim said. “This is a really good chance to discuss the issues we think are important and to do it in a fun, not in-your-face kind of way.”

Erica Newland ’08 LAW ’15, who helped organize the tailgate for Stand Up for Yale, said that alumni advocacy should extend beyond just Yale and Harvard. She said the tailgate is important because it will show the value of cooperation between alumni from different schools.

Rapoport said the tailgate marks the start of Crimson Courage’s efforts to work with alumni organizations from other schools to build a national movement.

Yale’s football team has defeated Harvard’s in The Game for three years in a row.

Contact LEO NYBERG at leo.nyberg@yale.edu.

their strong defense. Harvard has allowed just 98 yards per game on the ground, and only 184 yards per game through the air this season, both statistics just narrowly edging out Yale’s defense. However, Harvard’s weakness is its pass rush, which at times has struggled to generate pressure against inferior offensive lines. Ranking third in the conference, but 12 behind a league-leading Yale, Harvard has only 20 sacks on the season. While their rush defense does well to prevent large chunk plays, the Crimson have only three forced fumbles thus far. In a fairly evenly-matched game where momentum can play a big role, the Bulldogs have the advantage in the turnover and big play department. The Game icks off at noon at the Yale Bowl on Saturday. It will be televised on ESPNU.

Contact BRODY GILKISON at brody.gilkison@yale.edu.

Summers quits Yale Budget Lab board

him “deeply ashamed,” adding that he plans to pull back “from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships.” Yale’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications did not respond on Tuesday to the News’ inquiries about Summers, including a question about when Yale officials first learned about the extent of Summers’ interactions with Epstein.

In February 2024, Summers announced on X that he was working with Sarin and two legal experts on a Yale-associated initiative “to spearhead a new policy initiative working towards bipartisan, common-sense tax reform.” Summers encouraged people to submit proposals for the “Tax Reform Project,” which is hosted on a Yale website. Summers is listed as a member of the project’s steering committee, which describes itself as a “non-partisan network that solicits and evaluates proposals from experienced tax prac -

titioners and commentators” to propose legislative reforms.

The project stopped accepting proposals on July 31, 2024.

On April 6, the lab issued a press release linking to a four-minute CNN video titled “Larry Summers on what could be reassuring to people amid plunging market.”

On April 22, the lab issued a press release titled “Summers Says Trump ‘Attack’ on IRS Risks $1 Trillion Revenue Hit.” Though the content of the release is no longer available on the lab’s site, an article with a similar headline, however, was published that day in Bloomberg News. In October, the News reported that three former Yale faculty members had ties to Epstein and wrote personal notes in a 50th birthday album gifted to him. Summers served as the 27th president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

Contact ASHER BOISKIN at asher.boiskin@yale.edu and OLIVIA CYRUS at olivia.cyrus@yale.edu.

Postdocs seek to join grad union

National Institutes of Health. For postdoctoral scholars, research funding cuts could lead to losing a job, Laxton said.

Yale’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications did not immediately respond to the News’ request for comment.

In her speech, Laxton described getting laid off last year and feeling like her life was being uprooted. She was told if she didn’t find a new job within 60 days, she would lose her work visa and her ability to stay in the United States. While she was able to find a job before then, she said not being a part of a formal advocacy group made the transition frightening.

“I have talked to postdocs who have uprooted their lives and moved thousands of miles to come to Yale, only to lose their jobs,” Maya Emmons-Bell, a postdoctoral associate in cell biology, said.

Others framed unionization as a financial issue. Speakers highlighted the day-to-day financial pressures that shape postdoctoral researchers’ lives, and said membership in a union could provide more stability.

Leila Wahab, a postdoctoral associate who studies soils and biogeochemistry, spoke about her daily financial struggles and how membership in a union could help her.

“A raise and affordable health insurance would mean not worrying about every sound my 15-yearold car makes, because if it breaks down, I can’t afford another one,” Wahab said. “It would mean being able to visit and support my aging parents more often. It would mean being able to save for having children in the future.”

The rally was a part of Yale’s postdoctoral researchers’ efforts to obtain membership in Local 33, so that they can receive the same protections as the graduate students, researchers and staff in recognized unions.

The new effort comes three years after Yale’s initial recognition of the graduate student union Local 33. Since then, graduate students have negotiated contracts to ensure adequate health coverage, higher pay and employer-provided pathways for grievances.

“Just like grad workers, postdocs deserve health and safety protections, job security, fair treatment language and a grievance procedure to deal with workplace issues,” Waters said.

For Waters, the recognition of Local 33 was an assurance that his voice and any issues he might have with the University would be taken seriously and addressed with proper attention.

Sydney Shuster GRD ’27, a fourthyear graduate student in biophysical chemistry and a vice president of Local 33, spoke about how the recognition of Local 33 allowed her to carry out groundbreaking research while simultaneously affording basic living expenses.

“When we won dental insurance, that meant I didn’t have to choose between my health and my science,” Shuster said.

Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker and State Senate President Martin Looney also took the podium throughout the night, emphasizing the continued importance of UNITE HERE unions on a state level.

“We know that the effort on behalf of unions is what we need to improve this country’s future and to deliver us through the nightmare that we’re in right now,” Looney said.

“All of us who represent New Haven in the General Assembly are proud to be part of that effort.”

Looney stressed the importance of maintaining and strengthening unions as a defense against the federal government’s research funding cutbacks.

Lamont expressed similar sentiments, arguing that supporting researchers is key to winning a broader fight for a stable political and economic future.

“Respect means respecting the importance of what you’re doing every day and reflecting that in how you’re treated. Respect means reminding Donald Trump that you are the future of this country. We’re right here, fighting for you every day,” Lamont said.

In a rousing speech at the end of the rally, Rev. Scott Marks called for a collective push against cuts to research funding and an underregulated Yale presence in New Haven. Marks, the director of New Haven Rising, argued that securing union membership for postdoctoral students would have a revitalizing effect on New Haven.

“It is the most powerful tool we have to transform the many poverty-wage jobs we have in our city,” Marks said. “Union victories are community victories.”

DJ Tootskee closed out the downtown rally with “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars, as the ensemble of speakers danced on stage.

UNITE HERE represents over 300,000 workers across the United States and Canada, according to its website.

Contact KADE GAJDUSEK at kade.gajdusek@yale.edu and CATHERINE CHENG at catherine.cheng@yale.edu.

Classes to examine Yale, academia

graduation often question what it means to be a Yalie, which affects the popularity of his course. Gitlin has also noticed that the current generation of students often find it more problematic to attend an elite school, which could contribute to the increase in courses on Yale.

“I think Yale always likes to be about Yale. It’s a corporation. Its responsibility is securing its own legacy,” professor Noreen Khawaja said in an interview about why Yale offers courses on itself.

Khawaja will teach the course “What Was the University?” The lecture will examine the “theory of the university as a historical, political institution as well as a spiritual enterprise,” the syllabus says.

Khawaja said that her course is a “slight permutation” from others offered on the history of the University. She explained that students will discuss philosophical readings and “more theoretical work” about how to understand the university as a “space sealed off from the rest of society.”

Professor Mordechai LevyEichel’s class, “What is the University?” focuses on a “high-level historical and structural examination of the rise of the research university,” per the course description. He first taught the course in the spring of 2023.

Khawaja emphasized the need for a course that “speaks to the present moment” as learning changes with the introduction of artificial intelligence and other factors. She said now is an interesting moment to reflect on the formation of the University as an institution and corporation.

“We tend to ask questions about how we got to where we are and what’s worth holding onto as different uncertain horizons meet us,” she said. “I think that’s just the basic point of doing history in this case and in any other.”

Gitlin said that the focus of his upper-level seminar is to use the “lens of Yale people and the things that are happening at Yale” as a way to study American history. He explained that the class is an opportunity for his students to reflect on their experiences at Yale, while providing a space to talk about Yale positively and critically.

“I think it’s fun to teach a class about something that people are truly close to and invested in. But at the same time, approach it as historians,” he said.

Gitlin said that many students believe in stereotypes about the history of Yale, and he enjoys teaching his course to find out

“what actually happened.”

“Why I like teaching any history class, and this one, especially, because it allows me to try to think about: What exactly is this place? What was true then?” he said.

The last time Botsman taught “Yale and Japan” was in the spring of 2023 with professor Hannah Shepherd. The seminar explores the history of Yale’s relationship with Japan through analyzing archival records. While Botsman said there was no reason behind the timing of his class returning, he emphasized the importance of studying the history of Yale.

“We have this idea, rightly, that Yale is this very elite, white male school, and I think it’s interesting to think about the exceptions to that in the early history,” he said.

Benjamin Bernard ’11, a postdoctoral associate at the History department, will be teaching “Trust and Veritas: the Public Legitimacy of Universities.” The course “investigates the historical origins and contestations of university legitimacy from the Middle Ages to the present,” according to its course description.

Bernard is also associated with the Committee on Trust in Higher Education, which was established by University President Maurice McInnis this April.

“The study of universities is great for an undergraduate research seminar,” Bernard wrote to the News. “The topic has immanent value, as many of us are curious to deepen our knowledge of the institutions in which we live and work.”

Apart from the topic’s relevance to the lives of faculty and students, Bernard also commented on the intellectual importance of “the study of universities.” These include the topic’s access to a broad range of methodologies, the availability of archival materials preserved by institutions, recent “significant” scholarship in the field and the topic’s close connection to democracy and other important social institutions.

“Because universities are some of our oldest extant institutions—far older than, say, modern democracy or urban police—they lend themselves well to longitudinal study across traditionally demarcated periods,” Bernard wrote. Spring term courses will begin Jan. 12, 2026.

Contact JOLYNDA WANG at jolynda.wang@yale.edu and GILLIAN PEIHE FENG at peihe.feng@yale.edu.

Professors say McInnis cited risk of provoking Trump

HoSang’s characterization of the administrators’ stance.

McInnis’ remarks indicated that her administration’s priority was defending Yale, which “meant defending the endowment” to McInnis and trustees, according to Wenger. However, Wenger acknowledged that preserving the endowment provides the University its foundation to pursue other priorities.

“It kind of starts with that. To them, that is really essential, that you have to defend the finances of the institution in order for the institution to continue, and they wanted to deflect and avoid direct attacks on Yale from the Trump administration,” Wenger said in a September interview.

Last fall, McInnis adopted a report that advised Yale leaders to abstain from speaking publicly on matters of public significance. The guidance noted possible exceptions to this practice for matters of “transcendent importance to the community.” In two recent emails to the News, McInnis cited these recommendations and noted their influence on her public comments.

HoSang said in a Wednesday interview that he does not recall McInnis mentioning the University’s policy on institutional voice in the February faculty meeting he attended.

Since Trump took office, Yale has remained one of two Ivy League schools whose federal grants have not been punitively frozen. Over the summer, the University navigated a federal proposal that would increase the tax on its endowment investment returns. The bill, signed into law on July 4, established an 8 percent endowment tax for Yale.

Wenger said that she and other AAUP members “felt a great deal of respect for the dilemmas” McInnis was navigating. According to Wenger, McInnis said at the meeting that she had not made any deals with the Trump administration, referring to “speculations” around campus about how Yale has avoided significant crackdown from the federal government.

“President McInnis was very clear that had not happened, that she had not been in any talks with the Trump administration, but that she was spending a lot of time in D.C. advocating with members of Congress against endowment taxes,” Wenger said.

Asked whether she had since been in talks with the Trump administration, McInnis wrote in an email last Thursday that she continues “to make the case for Yale and higher education more broadly.”

“As I have done last year, I regularly meet with legislators, policymakers, and leaders in Washington, DC, to speak about the contribu-

tions of colleges and universities and to discuss Yale’s mission. Nothing has changed since last spring,” McInnis wrote last Thursday.

Inside the meetings

According to HoSang, McInnis’s two spring meetings with professors followed letters from faculty demanding that Yale administrators publicly defend research and academic freedom at Yale in the wake of federal scrutiny towards higher education.

McInnis wrote in a Tuesday email that she invited faculty members affiliated with the letters to meet with her and Provost Scott Strobel during the spring semester. She noted in a later email that her meetings were with the letters’ senders and were “not organized around faculty groups.”

“I think she and other University leaders understand the importance of at least hearing faculty concerns,” HoSang said. He added that McInnis was the only administrator at the February meeting in the University President’s Office.

According to HoSang, two other members of the AAUP executive committee attended the Feb. 24 meeting, alongside faculty from the School of Public Health and the School of Medicine, who spoke on the impacts of widespread cuts to federal research grants. HoSang said that professors at the meeting did not make

any concrete demands beyond the concerns outlined in their February letter, which called on McInnis to make more prominent public statements and collaborate with other universities in defending higher education.

McInnis was “open to listening” and candid about the constraints that the University was facing, HoSang said. However, in light of funding freezes at other institutions and threats of an endowment tax hike on universities, he said, McInnis conveyed her concerns about the University’s budget.

Since adopting the Committee on Institutional Voice’s guidance, McInnis has condemned the National Institute of Health’s cuts to research funding, and during summer recess, she urged members of the Yale community to advocate against the endowment tax hike proposal.

According to HoSang, McInnis met with faculty members for a second time on May 2, following an April faculty letter jointly presented by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science Senate and Yale’s AAUP chapter.

HoSang said that while he was not present at the second meeting, other members of the AAUP executive committee and senior members of the FAS-SEAS Senate met with McInnis and Strobel. Wenger, the AAUP chapter’s secretary, said she attended the meeting.

According to Wenger, some faculty members wanted Yale to take a “stronger, more public stand in defense of every member of our community, and in the sense of the research that happens here, the value of the University, academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus, which are values that seem to be too easily under attack from the right at this point.”

However, she said “many” others also believe that University leaders making public statements would be “counterproductive.” Wenger’s impression was that Yale administrators appreciated faculty and community members’ voices and were not aiming to prevent individuals from “speaking out” on issues.

HoSang said that McInnis’s spring meetings with faculty made it clear to him that “the decision had been made” by administrators to refrain from more prominently defending Yale in the public sphere. He said the AAUP has since shifted its priorities away from demanding public statements.

“They’ve made the decision not to do that, and it’s not something, from my perspective, was going to be terribly productive to keep pressing on,” HoSang said.

The AAUP chapter at Yale was revived last November.

Contact ISOBEL MCCLURE at isobel.mcclure@yale.edu and JAEHA JANG at jaeha.jang@yale.edu.

“Give thanks for a little, and you will find a lot.” HAUSA

State Dept. partnership at Yale may be suspended, Guardian reports

BY JERRY GAO STAFF REPORTER

An internal State Department memo recommended the suspension of Yale and 37 other universities from the Diplomacy Lab — a State Department initiative that partners with education institutions to research topics proposed by the Department — for “DEI hiring practices,” according to a Wednesday article in The Guardian.

According to The Guardian’s report, a spreadsheet accompanying the memo categorized 75 universities on their hiring policies, ranging from “clear DEI hiring policy” to “merit-based hiring with no evidence of DEI,” an acronym that typically refers to diversity, equity and inclusion. According to The Guardian, the memo further states that

“letters notifying institutions of discontinued participation will be sent pending approval.”

University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote in an email to the News that Yale has “not received such a notice” and “complies with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations.”

The memo’s recommendations could be the latest in numerous efforts by the Trump administration against diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, measures. On Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order that described government DEI measures as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”

At least one course at Yale, “Artificial Intelligence, Anti-Human Trafficking and the Ukrainian Refugee Crisis,” was run in partnership with the Diplomacy Lab last spring.

A description of the course posted on Yale Jackson School of Global

Affairs’ website noted that the seminar was “taught in collaboration with the United States Department of State’s Diplomacy Lab and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.”

Casey King ’GRD 10 — the lecturer for the course — did not immediately respond to the News’ request for comment regarding the nature of the State Department’s involvement.

According to The Guardian, Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Duke and the University of Southern California are also “marked for suspension,” alongside Yale. Columbia, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin were among the universities recommended to stay.

The State Department did not immediately respond to

the News’ and The Guardian’s requests for comment.

“The State Department is reviewing all programs to ensure that they are in line with the President’s agenda,” a spokesperson wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian about the memo obtained by The Guardian.

According to an archived version of the State Department’s website, the Diplomacy Lab was launched in 2013 and partners with academic institutions to “conduct research around various Department-identified topics in priority policy areas.”

“Academic partners recruit faculty members to assemble and guide student teams to undertake State Department-proposed Diplomacy Lab projects. Over a semester, faculty guide students in developing a final work product and presentation according to goals

developed in collaboration with the Department of State,” a 2024 document on the State Department’s website states.

In February, the Department of Education instructed universities in a “Dear Colleague” letter to end all race-conscious programs and launched an investigation alleging that several universities’ violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete in sports. In March, the department launched an investigation into Yale’s partnership with an organization that aims to bolster diversity amongst business school faculty.

The State Department was the first administrative arm of the executive branch to be established.

Contact JERRY GAO at jerry.gao.jg2988@yale.edu .

‘That’s me, I won’: Rhodes Scholar picks reflect on Yale journeys

BY RISHI GURUDEVAN AND SULLIVAN HO CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS

After 10 hours of interviews, Aruna Balasubramanian ’26 said she could barely process what was happening when the Rhodes Trust announced her as a winner of the prestigious Rhodes scholarship.

“They said my name, and I was like, ‘That’s me, I won,’ and that was crazy,” Balasubramanian said in an interview.

“I went to the hotel room where my mom was staying, and we went out to dinner, and I called my family,” Balasubramanian said. “Both my parents cried for joy, of course, and it’s been really a crazy experience.”

On Saturday, three Yale seniors were named Rhodes Scholars. Balasubramanian, August Rios ’26 and Noah Tirschwell ’26 were among 32 American students selected for the scholarship, which funds graduate study at the University of Oxford.

Each of the three students were formally nominated by Yale, and they were selected from a pool of 965 candidates who were also endorsed by their universities on the basis of their “academic excellence,” “moral force of character” and “energy to use one’s talents to the full,” among other criteria, according to the Rhodes Trust website.

Balasubramanian views art as a policy tool Balasubramanian, who is from Bala Cynwyd, Pa., plans to study global and area studies at Oxford. She is focusing her work on “how art can be used as a policy tool, especially for small towns and

small communities.” She plans to pursue field work in France, Japan and Wales, she said.

Balasubramanian said her senior thesis is focused on studying a Japanese village that used art galleries to revitalize its economy. During her time at Yale, she’s been broadly interested in “what art can do for people’s lives, in terms of fostering social cohesion, giving a sense of identity, being an economic force and a political force.”

“In hindsight, my interests have been the same all along, but I didn’t really know how to articulate them,” Balasubramanian said. “I applied to Yale for, interestingly, East Asian Studies and Sociology. Obviously, not art. But I picked Yale because Yale had the art museums, it had the Yale Art School.”

Discussing trips abroad with the Yale Center for British Art and the Light Fellowship, she reflected, “I think the best parts of my experience at Yale have been how many times I’ve been able to travel the world on Yale’s dime with Yale students.”

Rios fights for housing

Rios was on a FaceTime call with his mother when he heard the announcement.

“She was with my dad and my older sister,” he said in an interview “My parents were in the Walmart parking lot, I believe.”

For the rest of the day, Rios described having a “complete brain mush and in the best way possible.” He called and emailed many of the people who had supported him along the way, including his recommenders

and extended family. “I have five siblings, so all of them got their own call, and they were wonderful and adorable,” he said.

Rios, a senior in Timothy Dwight College, is from Bluffton, S.C. Majoring in sociology, he intends to pursue two one-year masters degrees from Oxford, the first in comparative social policy and the second in evidence-based social inter

vention and policy evaluation

Rios said that after study

ing international housing policy abroad, he wants to return home and take “what’s working elsewhere, perhaps, and readapt and reconfigure the U.S. model.”

Rios explained that his increased awareness of long waits for food, vaccines and housing during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed to him that “despite us being the wealthiest democracy on Earth, our we do a lot of things wrong.” Initially entering Yale on a pre-medical track, he pivoted to the urban sociology track of the sociology major after taking professor Rourke O’Brien’s course entitled “Inequality, Economic Mobility & Public Policy” during his first-year spring.

Rios has engaged with housing advocacy in a multitude of settings at Yale and in New Haven. He was an audit tester at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, identifying instances in which “corporate landlords or other entities are discriminating on the basis of a protected class.” In August 2024, Rios was appointed to the New Haven Affordable Housing Commission by Mayor Justin Elicker.

Tirschwell thanks Yale community

“I called my parents immediately,” Noah Tirschwell ’26 wrote in an email. “Then, I went to Shake Shack and bought myself a celebratory shake. I was missing the Saybrook Formal at Shake Shack later that night, so it felt like a fitting way to mark the occasion.”

Tirschwell was filled with “extraordinary gratitude” about winning the scholarship,and was grateful for the “more people than I can count” that supported him during his time at Yale, “in ways large and small.”

Tirschwell told the News he plans to pursue a one-year masters in intellectual history, followed by a one-year masters in Jewish studies, “but that might change.” While at Oxford, he intends to write a research paper based off of archival research he conducted in Paris over the summer.

Over the last four years, Tirschwell has been involved in various capacities while on campus. He tutored “Calculus of Functions of Several Variables” and helped students as a Writing Center partner and Directed Studies tutor. He also “served in various Jewish leadership and advisory capacities in the Slifka Center, including as Hillel Student board co-president from 2024-25,” he wrote. Tirschwell is also a first-year orientation trip leader, guiding backpacking trips for incoming first years.

Among the Ivy League, Yale tied with Harvard for the most American Rhodes Scholars this year with three students selected.

Contact RISHI GURUDEVAN at rishi.gurudevan@yale.edu and SULLIVAN HO at sullivan.ho@yale.edu .

Students pitch divestment to advisory committee at annual meeting

BY RISHI GURUDEVAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

The Yale Endowment Justice Collective, an undergraduate group that advocates against “unethical investment practices,” delivered three presentations to Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility at its annual open meeting on Zoom last Thursday.

In recent years, the committee has considered various student proposals about divestments. Last year, the committee recommended divestment from assault weapons manufacturers but declined to make a recommendation about investments in military weapons manufacturers, despite ongoing student protests calling for divestment. The committee is still considering a proposal from last year on divesting from BP, a British oil company.

“We’re here today with dozens of other students to show that we are not fooled by channels designed to fail us: we will continue to hold Yale Corp accountable,” Isabel Matos ’28, an organizer with the Endowment Justice Collective, wrote in the

group’s Thursday press release. The advisory committee is comprised of two faculty members, two students, two staff members and two alumni, according to its website. The committee makes recommendations to the Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility, a committee of trustees that makes recommendations to the Yale Corporation. Any recommendations made by the Corporation’s investor responsibility committee then must be “must be adopted by the full Board to become effective.”

The advisory committee holds an open meeting to hear student proposals every year. Attendees had to register in advance of attending the meeting.

Julianne Minuto, an event planner with Yale Conferences and Events, wrote in an email to the News that “while this meeting is open to the Yale Community,” it was closed to press.

The Endowment Justice Collective shared a press release Thursday about the group’s proposals to the committee but did not respond to the News’ request for the specific materials they presented.

The group’s first presentation

advocated for divestment from software company Palantir Technologies, according to the press release. The Endowment Justice Collective and the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project previously pitched divestment from Palantir last year. According to the Thursday press release, the original proposal was rejected by the advisory committee.

This year’s presentation focused on how Palantir’s technology in the last year has aided “targeted missile strikes on journalists in Gaza, massscale deportation efforts in collaboration with ICE” and repressed “free speech on college campuses across the country,” according to the Endowment Justice Collective’s press release. The presentation specifically mentioned that Palantir’s “Gotham” and “Foundry” operating systems have enabled surveillance of Americans by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Gazans by the Israel Ministry of Defense.

In April, Palantir denied its involvement in surveillance operations, but reaffirmed its

“support of and solidarity with Israel.”

The next presentation advocated against Yale’s investments in the liquefied natural gas industry, according to the press release, which said that the harm caused to the environment by liquefied natural gas is greater than that by other fossil fuels. The press release said that Yale had “an investment in Ring Energy Inc.” and “significant investments in Energy Transfer and EQT Corporation,” citing a link to Yale’s Form 13-F, a type of SEC filing that collects “information required of institutional investment managers.”

The final presentation argued a renewed case for divestment from Yale’s holdings in military weapons manufacturers, according to the press release.

“Yale has previously divested from assault weapons retailers, in an effort to address mass shootings,” the press release states.

“Nonetheless, they invest in weapons manufacturers who sell to states that violate both

international law and the core of Yale’s mission.”

“The ACIR affirmed a commitment to ‘the process’— which as we’ve seen with our previous presentation on divestment from BP, can take years,” he wrote in a text message to the News, referring to the British oil company. “Dozens of students and workers showed up in support of our demands because we cannot wait.”

Kenneth Gillingham, the senior associate dean of academic affairs and the chair of the advisory committee, wrote in an email to the News that the committee takes varying amounts of time to come to a decision.

“The ACIR takes as long as is needed to discuss any proposal that comes in from the Yale community, student or otherwise,” he wrote.

“Sometimes this doesn’t take long at all. Other times it can take longer.”

The Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility was established during the 1972-73 academic year, according to its website.

Contact RISHI GURUDEVAN at rishi.gurudevan@yale.edu .

“Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Police release man after alleged weapon threat at Good Nature Market

BY ADELE HAEG AND TANNER BATTLE STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

The Yale Police Department responded Wednesday night to a call from Good Nature Market reporting that a man attempted to rob the store and claimed he had a knife, according to New Haven Police Department spokesperson Christian Bruckhart.

The man was searched and released, and employees at the market declined to press charges, Bruckhart said.

But a Good Nature employee said the man never showed a knife, and no injuries were reported.

“A guy came into the store and grabbed a couple pieces of food from the buffet and we told him he needed to pay. He said no, he didn’t want to pay anything,” cashier Claudio Sanchez said in an interview Wednesday night.

“No weapon, nothing like that. He said he had something

but never showed anything,” Sanchez said. Sanchez said he talked to the police and told the man “he cannot come in anymore.” Two other employees at the market declined to comment about the incident.

Bruckhart said the Yale Police Department later located the man outside of Alpha Delta Pizza, located a few blocks away from Good Nature. NHPD responders were also at the scene.

An Alpha Delta employee confirmed to the News that he saw police detain and search a man before releasing him.

Good Nature Market — known to students as “GHeav” after a previous store in the same location, Gourmet Heaven — is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Contact ADELE HAEG at adele.haeg@yale.edu . TANNER BATTLE at tanner.battle@yale.edu .

DeLauro says tax on Italian pasta would strain importers and shoppers

BY MADISON AGUILAR CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

New Haven’s Rep. Rosa

DeLauro spoke Monday morning at Vinnie’s Italia Importing

Company in Wooster Square to highlight the effects of proposed new tax on Italian pasta — and the potential ripple effects on small businesses and restaurants that import Italian goods.

At the event, DeLauro and a group of Italian American business owners slammed the Trump administration’s newly proposed duties on Italian imports, especially pasta. DeLauro, who is Democratic co-chair of the Italian American Congressional Delegation, demanded that the Trump administration suspend implementation of these duties and work to protect small business and consumers, while preserving the U.S.-Italian alliance.

According to CBS News, the threat of a new import tax came after the U.S. Department of Commerce report concluded that some Italian pasta makers were importing products to the United States and selling them below the market price, undercutting American producers. In response, the Department proposed a 92 percent “anti-dumping” duty.

The threat of new duties has forced Italian businesses to consider halting exports to the United States, DeLauro said. She

fears that might result in a scarcity of goods and higher prices for consumers.

“Reports indicate that new duties could raise total tariffs to more than 100 percent on certain Italian pasta imports,” DeLauro said. “The tariff policies are hurting people everyday who are living paycheck to paycheck, with high costs of health care, groceries, electricity and housing.”

Mike DiVirgillo, the owner of Vinnie’s Italia Importing on Grand Avenue, said tariffs on Italian goods force distributors to raise their prices, which then causes business owners such as grocers or restaurant owners to raise the price of their products, ultimately leaving the consumer to pay the bill.

DeLauro said the tariffs would affect thirteen pasta makers, including brands like Rummo and Barilla.

DeLauro said she and other members of the bipartisan Italian American delegation in Con -

gress are circulating a draft letter urging President Donald Trump to end tariffs on Italian goods and support trade.

“The bonds between our nations run deep through shared values, economic partnership, and the proud Italian American community that has enriched every aspect of American life,” reads the unsigned draft letter, shared with the News by a member of DeLauro’s staff.

Nadia Liuzzi and Francesa Liuzzi Fiorillo, both part owners of Liuzzi Gourmet Food Market, said their business relies on Italian imports. They are now faced with the prospect of raising prices.

“Now instead of something being $10.99, it’s going to be $12.99,” Nadia Liuzzi said. Liuzzi Gourmet Food Market is located in North Haven.

Contact MADISON AGUILAR at madison.aguilar@yale.edu .

State housing bill poised to boost New Haven development

BY ELIJAH HUREWITZ-RAVITCH STAFF REPORTER.

Connecticut’s state legislature last Wednesday passed a sweeping housing bill, HB 8002, in special session.

The bill aims to incentivize and accelerate housing development in cities and towns across Connecticut — including New Haven. Gov. Ned Lamont SOM ’80, who vetoed an earlier version of the bill in June, plans to sign the bill soon, he said in a press release.

“This is the first time we have a state-guided process to ensure that towns are planning and zoning for affordable housing,” Erin Boggs, the executive director of the Connecticut-based, housing-focused civil rights organization Open Communities Alliance, said in a phone interview. “Done right, this could have a tremendous positive impact.”

One provision likely to affect New Haven involves changes to parking regulations.

The bill prohibits towns from requiring off-street parking, such as lots or garages, for residential developments with 16 or fewer units.

“It’s one of the boldest reforms across the country,” Nick Kantor, the program director at Desegregate CT, a “pro-homes” coalition that is a program of the Regional Plan Association, said in a phone interview.

Building parking, he said, “is just such an expensive piece of the construction process.” Kantor explained that eliminating parking requirements will encourage developments and “unlock missing middle housing,” referring to structures with less than 10 units, like townhomes and duplexes.

Developers may now be

able to build such housing — which Kantor said is part of Connecticut’s “DNA” — on disused parking lots, a process known as infill.

Kantor added that money saved on parking might amount to “millions of dollars that gets passed through to the home renter.”

The bill, otherwise known as “An Act Concerning Housing Growth,” also bars municipalities from building hostile architecture — structures designed to prevent homeless people from sitting or lying down.

Many of the bill’s provisions will be most impactful in suburban towns, according to Hugh Bailey, the policy director at Open Communities Alliance. But they will nonetheless alleviate the strain on New Haven’s housing market.

“If Branford and North Haven and all these other towns are allowing affordable housing to be built, that has positive impacts on New Haven, so it’s not just on the city itself to provide that that is so desperately needed,” Bailey said.

New Haven, along with Connecticut’s other 168 towns and cities, will also be required to adopt a municipal housing growth plan by June 2029, unless it agrees to comply with a plan developed for the entire South Central region of Connecticut. The bill stipulates that such a plan must be aimed at stemming displacement and preserving existing affordable housing.

The state bill establishes a Council on Housing Development, which will evaluate and enforce the housing growth plans. Kantor predicted that the interagency body would help streamline how cities and towns apply for state grants.

But the bill also creates a specialized housing growth program that by mid-2028 will provide grants for qualifying municipalities to build water lines, sewer lines, roads, and bicycle, pedestrian and transit infrastructure around new homes.

New Haven, said Partnership for Strong Communities policy director Sean Ghio, will be “in a good position to access some money” from the fund.

Ghio added that translating state law onto the local level leaves much in the air.

The process put forward in the bill, Boggs cautioned, includes “many more steps than we envision” and sets up a “back and forth process” between the state, regional councils and municipalities.

“There is no silver bullet. There is no one bill that’s going to solve the answer here.”

The bill passed in the state House 90 votes to 56 and in the state Senate 24 to 10.

Contact ELIJAH HUREWITZ-RAVITCH at elijah.hurewitz-ravitch@yale.edu .

“We have a crisis of affordability in this state; we have to address it and that means coming at it from multiple angles,” Kantor said.

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”

KEVIN JAMES AMERICAN COMEDIAN

Yale delegations arrive to Brazil for annual UN climate conference

BY MICHELLE SO STAFF REPORTER

Yale representatives recently arrived in Belém, Brazil, for the 30th annual United Nations climate change conference, also called the 30th Conference of the Parties, or COP30.

COP30 began last Monday and will run until Friday. The two-week event involves climate negotiations, speaker panels and dialogues between different organizations.

According to Melanie Quigley, the School of the Environment’s associate dean of strategic initiatives, Yale has been sending students to the Conference of Parties

for the last 30 years. The 17 School of the Environment representatives are graduate students selected from the Yale COP Delegate Program. Many will be supporting deliberations and negotiations for countries, including the Republic of Vanuatu, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nigeria, Montenegro, Ghana and more.

“These graduate and professional students, they’re looking for internships, they’re looking for future job prospects and they’re also trying to pursue their kind of academic and research interests,” Quigley said in an interview. “So we try to help them get to the point where all of this makes complete

sense for what they’re trying to do, and that’s why it’s been so successful.”

Umer Vaqar ENV ’26 will be a party delegate for the Pakistan Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination.

In addition to coordinating the COP30 Pakistan Youth and Expert Support Network, his work will focus on adaptation, climate finance and the Global Goal on Adaptation areas critical to countries most exposed to climate risks.

“For Pakistan and other nations of the Global South, it’s not just about representation but about redefining resilience as measurable, fundable and just. Being part of this process as both a student and a practitioner is a rare opportunity to translate academic research into policy action,” Vaqar wrote in an email to the News. “I hope to bring that experience back to Yale to strengthen our community’s understanding of what equitable implementation looks like in practice.”

Camila Young ’26 is the head of the five-member undergraduate delegation representing the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. Young is a climate artist whose work promotes climate justice and the impact of climate change on islanders.

One of her exhibition pieces titled “Babel” features a city crumbling under crashing waves, held up by the back of a woman.

“We are in this era where we need to have humility that these things are happening around us, but we

can be receptive to it and move forward if our leadership is willing to kind of take on this mantle of sacrifice and build with us on behalf of the community that is being affected the most,” Young said.

Young pointed out that this year’s conference will be held in the remote forests of Belém, in contrast to previous conferences, which have been held in major city centers. The choice in location has resulted in both praise and controversy.

In March, BBC reported that tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon forest were felled to make way for a four-lane highway into the heart of the secluded city.

The conference has tried to spotlight more indigenous voices, with over 900 indigenous participants registered. On Friday, about 100 indigenous Munduruku people blocked the main entrance in a peaceful demonstration, forming a human chain that required attendees to take a side door, AP reported.

“It can be seen in two different lenses. One is that the Amazon, this small place, might not have the capacity to accommodate so many people coming, but at the same time, it kind of puts us in a setting that gets to the heart of why we’re talking about climate change in the first place,” Young said. “The Amazon is one of the places going to get destroyed with the oncoming changing climate.”

Phoenix Boggs ’26, a political science major, is another undergraduate representative attending COP30 alongside Young.

Boggs came into environmental justice advocacy by way of insect conservation and will be representing Xerces, an invertebrate conservation organization.

“The most important part of COP30 is to demonstrate to the international field that the United States still cares and that Americans still care about climate change and environment movement and the green transition,” Boggs said in a phone interview from Rio de Janeiro.

This year marks the first time since 1995 that the United States will not be officially represented at the annual conference. However, in addition to individual delegations like Yale, the U.S. Climate Alliance will be sending 100 local leaders to the conference, the group announced in a press release.

While climate change is often at the center of discussions, Boggs says discussion of biodiversity is often lacking. She will be speaking on panels about both higher education and climate, as well as how insect population decline will broadly affect the world, she said.

“The ecological damage and the downstream effects that will be caused as a result of insect population decline will be felt first in the Global South and in developing countries,” Boggs said. The Amazon rainforest spans 6.7 million square-kilometers across eight countries.

Contact MICHELLE SO at michelle.so@yale.edu.

Professor’s new initiative ‘flipping the script’ on hepatitis C care

BY NELLIE KENNEY STAFF REPORTER

A new Yale-led study found that ambient artificial intelligence scribes, which document medical visits, significantly reduced physician burnout and increased focused attention on patients.

Ambient AI scribes listen to and transcribe patient-clinician conversations, generating visit notes and completing required documentation. The study, published online last month, collected data from 263 physicians and advanced practice practitioners across six health care systems that utilized the Abridge ambient AI scribe.

“Across our multicenter study and our internal research at UChicago Medicine, we are seeing converging evidence that ambient AI scribes meaningfully reduce documentation burden and improve the day-today work experience for frontline clinicians,” Sachin Shah, the co-author of the study and the chief medical information officer at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, wrote to the News in a

statement.

“In the multicenter study, which included nearly 40% of clinicians from UChicago Medicine, burnout dropped from 51.9% to 38.8% after just 30 days of use, with substantial improvements in cognitive load and clinicians’ ability to give patients their full attention,” she wrote.

Kristine Olson, the study’s first author and a national thought leader on professional worklife wellbeing, emphasized that the study was driven by a desire to give physicians more time and energy for patient care.

Olson said that with physician shortages growing and physician attrition rising, health systems cannot hire more clinicians to manage escalating documentation demands. Reducing administrative burden, she said, has become increasingly critical.

“It’s been written about many times of the administrative complexity and the administrative load, and it said that healthcare medicine is strangling in red tape and paperwork,” Olson said in an interview.

AI capabilities advanced rapidly during the pandemic, Olson

added, enabling tools that can reliably record patient-doctor conversations and convert them into standard medical notes.

In turn, the team sought to test whether the technology could relieve the time pressure that keeps clinicians tethered to documentation instead of to their patients.

Tina Shah, the chief clinical officer at Abridge who also organized the use of Abridge in the six health care systems studied, said she first connected with Olson to explore ambient AI from a wellbeing perspective.

In their work, the team looked at physicians and advanced practice providers in ambulatory spaces — healthcare facilities that do not offer overnight hospital stay — and identified common pain points to relieve in clinical practice. After 30 days of deploying AI scribes, clinicians rated burnout, cognitive load, number of patients attended and undivided attention to patients on a ten-point scale.

Notably, intervention with Abridge AI scribes reduced burnout by 74 percent. Secondary analyses also showed improvements in cognitive task

load associated with writing the after-visit note and in a clinician’s ability to remain fully attentive to their patients.

“So most certainly, that makes a more lovely time in the clinic with your patients doing what you really love to do, taking care of them. So that makes sense, that it would also reduce burnout,” Olson said.

While the study didn’t measure patient satisfaction, Olson said the increased focus on patients could have potentially improved patient experiences in the clinic.

A Chicago-specific companion study led by Sachin Shah reinforced the findings from the paper, revealing that AI scribes saved clinicians about an hour of time each day.

For Olson, one of the keys towards achieving lower burnout rates and improved patient care is investment from organizations interested in solving the issue.

She credits the chief medical informatics officers and digital optimization leaders at the six organizations who collaborated in the study to push forward the AI scribe initiative.

“It wasn’t the technology

in search of a problem, it was really driven by pain points that we know we have, and so I wish that more AI companies would seek out input, especially from chief wellness officers and people who measure the pain points, to say, how can we use our our technology and our know how to solve problems that you have so that we can make a more human, centered, satisfying health care experience?” Olson said. When asked about future directions for research, Vinh Nguyen, the chief medical information officer at Memorial Healthcare System, said that Memorial Care will continue investigating the impact of ambient AI scribes in healthcare.

Nguyen said that potential areas of research include further exploring clinician burden and productivity and “how patients feel about clinicians’ use of ambient AI scribes during the visit and the ways in which it enhances the interaction.” The paper was published in Jama Network Open early last month.

Contact NELLIE KENNEY at nellie.kenney@yale.edu.

“Remember

that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

EPICURUS GREEK PHILOSOPHER

Advanced campus screening of new ‘Wicked’ movie draws mixed reviews

BY ANGEL HU & KELLY KONG STAFF REPORTER & CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Community members packed in a Humanities Quadrangle auditorium on Tuesday night for an advanced screening of “Wicked: For Good.”

Directed by Jon M. Chu, the movie is the latter half of the “Wicked” saga and adapts the second act of the 2003 stage musical. The film, which will be released in theaters on Nov. 21, continues the story of Elphaba, now the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Cynthia Erivo, and Glinda, played by Ariana Grande. The two witches navigate the consequences of their past decisions and see their friendship put to the ultimate test by a series of events destined to shape the future of the Land of Oz.

The screening was co-hosted by the Yale LGBTQ Employee Resource Group and the Yale Cinemat, which worked with Manager of Film Programming Marc Francis and NBCUniversal to present the screening to the Yale community.

“The excitement about ‘Wicked: For Good’ is incredible – tickets sold out in seconds! – and it is so special that we all get to experience this film together on the big screen,” Elora Sparnicht ’27, the president of the Cinemat, wrote in an email.

“Movies have such power when it comes to bringing people together, and as student filmmakers and creatives, it’s so important to remember that,” Sparnicht wrote.

Christine Gentry, director of the Yale Teaching Fellowship and co-chair of the Yale LGBTQ Employee Resource group, highlighted the significance of “Wicked” in LGBTQ culture and community.

“‘Wicked’ and musical theater just hold a very special place for our members in their hearts,” Gentry said. “It just seems so exciting to give them some sort of VIP exclusive preview.”

Yale students expressed gratitude for the opportunity to view such an anticipated movie before its release.

“There’s so much interest in this sort of thing, and the fact that we have this is honestly an incredible opportunity,” Ryan Chao ’28 said.

The hosts welcomed a full house into the theater. Throughout the movie, the audience responded to various scenes and moments with rapturous laughter, gasps and applause.

“Seeing ‘For Good’ was just a much anticipated, amazing cinema moment. And I know we’re all super excited,” Chao said.

However, some attendants preferred “Wicked” over its sequel.

“It was a little underwhelming for me,” Nicole Viloria ’25 said. “I like the first one way more. I think the songs made more sense to me.”

“Wicked: For Good” also featured original music not in the canonical Broadway soundtrack, which drew mixed reactions from the attendees.

“I really like the new songs,” Sebastian Martinez ’29 said. “They

made this movie more cohesive with the new songs, with the added transition to dialogues and scene choices.”

Chao, on the other hand, said that the new songs diluted the emotions and charged energy of the original musical’s second act.

“It’s hard when you need to make such a long film and you’re taking not as much content,” Chao said. “I think I was mostly disappointed with how stretched out things were and with the filler plots.”

However, Chao expressed admiration for Erivo and Grande’s performances.

“They’re able to showcase a lot of their personal acting style in the songs,” Chao said. “For example, Cynthia Erivo is an incredible dramatic actor, and we saw even more of that side of her that’s just really shown through in an incredibly powerful way.”

Other students praised the continuity between the first and second movies and liked its light humor.

“I think it did well to build upon the story. It had a sort of self-awareness of the silliness of itself,” Liam Hannigan ’26, an attendee of the screening, said.

The first part of “Wicked” was released in theaters on Nov. 22, 2024.

Contact ANGEL HU at angel.hu@yale.edu and KELLY KONG at kelly.kong@yale.edu.

‘Siddhartha, She’ oratorio swaps gender of titular character

BY KIVA BANK & KAMALA GURURAJA STAFF REPORTER & CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Faculty artists from the Yale School of Music on Saturday performed “Siddhartha, She,” a seven-scene oratorio alongside the Yale Philharmonia, guest artists, Yale Choral Artists, Yale Glee Club, Yale Opera and Yale Voxtet.

An oratorio is a large-scale musical work, typically a narrative on a religious theme, performed without the use of costumes, scenery, or action. The semi-staged performance took place at Woolsey Hall and was conducted by Glee Club director Jeffrey Douma, who led the singers through the score composed by Christopher Theofanidis MUS ’94 ’97, the chair of composition at the Yale School of Music.

A reimagining of Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel “Siddhartha,” the work originally premiered in August at the Aspen Music Festival, where Theofanidis is a composer-in-residence and has been teaching since 2021. The libretto of the two-act show, which was written by poet Melissa Studdard, reimagined the protagonist Siddhartha and Siddhartha’s best friend Govinda as women.

“What I wanted to do was present it as a mythical past with an Indian flavor,” Studdard said.

“It’s more precise than that. It’s definitely an Indian setting, it’s definitely contemporaneous with the life of the Buddha, but I also didn’t want to risk moving

into the realm of any kind of appropriation, so I tried to keep it somewhat mythical as well, and with that being the case, I leaned into other things that were important to me.”

Janna Baty MUS ’93, who plays Kamala, said she recognizes that the identity of the protagonist in the German author’s novel is Indian but said the message of the story extends beyond culture.

“Irrespective of the ethnicity and nationality of the author, or the ethnicity or nationality of the subject being described, there are many universal truths that are fleshed out in the story,” Baty said, later adding that “ There was no attempt to pretend that any of the actors were Indian.”

Baty explained that the performers wore plain black clothing and accessorized with colorful scarves, which were symbolic of the river that flowed through both the story and across the stage on Saturday night. A long blue cloth was draped from one side of the balcony to the other, extending into the hall, a “metaphor for life” according to Baty.

For Krisha Ramani ’27, the problem with the reimagining is not the Buddhist themes it borrows but the disregard for that source material. She said she thinks the spread of Eastern ideas to the West can be valuable and noted that ideas of transcendence exist in both traditions.

Dramat goes number one with ‘Urinetown’

Wednesday night proved it truly is a “privilege to pee” in a glistening performance of “Urinetown.”

Leaking with wit and overflowing with potty humor, the Yale Dramatic Association’s fall mainstage proves that good satire, just like a full bladder, refuses to be ignored.

The musical, originally by Greg Kotis and Mark Hallman, premiered in 2001 and has been a regional theater staple since. Last performed by the Dramat in 2006, it was only a matter of time before the show reared its urinous head again at the University Theatre. The production opened on Wednesday night and will close Saturday night.

The show is overseen by the professional director Ashley Rodbro ’09, who returned to her alma mater for the peeing parable after previously serving as the stage manager for the 2006 Dramat production. With the assistance of producer Dhruv Bhalla ’27 and stage manager Elizabeth Simmons ’28, “Urinetown” is a production you do not want to piss away your chances of seeing.

“Urinetown” is a thinly veiled commentary on environmental decay and rampant capitalism masked by facetious tinkling. In a dystopia desolated by droughts, public toilets have been commodified by the exploitative “Urine Good Company.” Public urination is strictly prohibited, and offenders are sent to the mysterious “Urinetown,” never to be seen again.

The show is a riot. Farcical, yes, but also strangely precise, the kind of satire that feels both hilariously unhinged and eerily controlled. Its clownish extremes never obscure the sharper truths underneath. Instead, the silliness becomes a conduit for something bitter, necessary and unexpectedly resonant.

Much of this energy is brought from the cast. The ensemble is wacky, eccentric and lively, often stealing the show with their own wild antics or show stopping backflips.

The main cast is a spring of talent.

“Self-discovery is universal and should be discussed,” Ramani said in a phone interview. “But to tell the story using the vehicle of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies and then do away with explicit South Asian influence is a disservice to the origin of these stories.”

Adriana Zabala, an associate professor of music and assistant dean of collaborative arts at the Yale School of Music, said she had hesitations about playing the role of Siddhartha, including whether she was the right choice as a woman of European descent. She said Theofanidis originally reached out to her in the spring of 2024 to ask if she was interested in playing the role.

Zabala said she has played male roles with romantic connections to both men and women in her professional career as a singing actor for over 30 years. She explains that she carefully navigates the role of these characters that she does not necessarily identify with.

“I am always looking for some truth that I can put into action,” Zabala explained. “It’s something that I can latch on to that’s true for my character.”

Zabala said the truth she found in Siddhartha’s character for this performance was the tension between the sense of belonging among a family or place and having the stronger pull to “see beyond.”

Theofanidis said he “handpicked” the cast based on vocal ability for the work’s premiere at Aspen Music Festival, like original cast

Abram Knott’s ’27 velvety baritone is perfectly suited to Officer Lockstock, the omnipresent narrator who shepherds the audience through the show’s manufactured chaos with a voice as smooth as it is sly. His pairing with Alyssa Marvin ’29 as Little Sally — the precocious, chaos-sniffing kid

member Key’mon Murrah, whose voice he described as “completely otherworldly.”

“The voice type is super important to the kind of character,” Theofanidis said. “The voice has got to be the right kind of voice, and the actor has got to be the right kind of actor for that role.”

Murrah also performed the role of the Buddha, Gautama, in the second staging on Saturday. Tamara Mumford and Scott La Marca also returned to their roles as Dharuna and Aman, respectively.

Zabala added that the choice to change the gender of Siddhartha “modernized” the retelling.

Baty and Zabala portrayed the same-sex relationship between the characters, something they were able to do with ease, according to Zabala, who said they have been coworkers at the School of Music for years.

Baty explained that the portrayal of the female protagonist was a “refreshing” one because often female characters in opera have tragic fates and do not experience personal growth in the manner Siddhartha does in the reimagination.

who’s always two steps ahead of the plot — proves consistently delightful. Their back-and-forth lands with a kind of wry, conspiratorial charm. Ben Heller ’27 twinkles as Caldwell B. Cladwell, the tyrannical CEO whose corporate greed forces citizens to pay to tinkle. Meanwhile, Jaden Nicita ’28 and Sally Zheng ’28 make for a warm, endearing duo as Bobby Strong and Hope Cladwell, the starry-eyed leaders of the resistance whose earnestness gives the satire its emotional center.

My favorite performance of the night was that of Sabrina Strapp ’28 as Penelope Pennywise, the maniacal warden overseeing the town’s filthiest urinal. Strapp’s powerhouse vocals, over-the-top facial expressions and unrelenting commitment steal every scene she storms into. She’s unhinged in the best ways possible.

Much of what makes these performances sing is the cast’s razor-sharp physical comedy. The smallest details — an eyebrow flick, a precisely timed pause, a barely perceptible hand gesture — stack into big, sustained laughs. Their timing is impeccable, made all the sharper by an unusually eager Wednesday-night audience.

One of the most surprising stars of the night was Sadie Pohl’s ’28 captivating choreography. With airborne splits, rousing kicks and synchronized jabs, Pohl ensured there never was a dull moment on stage. In a very rare occurrence for this critic, I looked forward to each dance break because I was so intrigued by what jiving combination the cast would bring next. Additionally — and this feels like a small miracle — for the first time in my experience with the Dramat I was able to hear every performer. Typically in University Theatre, the cavernous acoustics swallow up any line that is not yelled. In a joyous reprieve, every actor in “Urinetown” could be heard loud and clear. Audiences still have three more days to catch this comedic romp. “Urinetown” glows with a chaotic brilliance that is nothing if not a golden shower of theatrical joy.

Contact CAMERON NYE at cameron.nye@yale.edu.

“To imagine Siddhartha as being female, and imagine what her loves and experiences as a disciple, as a seeker, as a daughter, as a lover, as a partner, I think that gives a great deal of depth and interest to an already very beautiful tale,” Baty said.

Shreenandini Mukhopadhyay LAW ’26, who attended the oratorio, said she found the performance “immersive” and “theatrical” because of the projected visuals of figures like the snake and bird, saying these elements made the acts easier to follow. She said that the themes “felt very personal to a certain level” because she is from India and has been to Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

“I was very delighted that the genders were switched, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a ‘woman’s perspective’ retelling,” Mukhopadhyay said. “It kind of felt like the switch was just made.”

“Siddhartha, She” was co-commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and the Yale Glee Club.

Contact KIVA BANK at kiva.bank@yale.edu and KAMALA GURURAJA at kamala.gururaja@yale.edu.

SPORTS

MEN’S BASKETBALL: Rhode Island defense stifles Bulldogs in first loss

BY WALTER ROYAL STAFF REPORTER

The Yale men’s basketball team (3–1) lost its first game of the season to the University of Rhode Island Rams (4–1), falling 77-86 on Tuesday at the John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven.

The Bulldogs, who were leading the nation in threepoint percentage entering the night, were unable to crack Rhode Island’s stifling defense. The Rams took possession by stealing the ball on 17.5 percent of Yale’s offensive trips. The Rams, who are currently fifth in the nation in steal percentage, scored 22 of their 86 points off Yale turnovers.

“We didn’t do a good job of staying in front of the ball. That’s true. I thought we got hurt getting to the rim that way,” head coach James Jones said in the postgame press conference.

Rhode Island rosters a suite of dynamic wings, each with specialized playstyles. The Rams’ Tyler Cochran averages 4.4 steals per game, which places him second in NCAA Division 1. On Tuesday night, Cochran’s defensive prowess paired perfectly with junior Jonah Hinton’s offense. An athletic sharpshooter, Hinton had 24 points on the night.

“The kid Hinton had a really good game on us. He makes five threes, and he was open for two of them, at least, where there was nobody in sight,” Jones said.

From the tip, the matchup was particularly close. Neither team held a multi-score lead until Mouhamed Sow gave the Rams a four-point advantage, 16-20, with a pair of free throws at the 10:58 mark. The Senegalese center, standing at a towering 7’1”, was a difference maker for

Rhode Island. In his 16 total minutes on the floor, the Rams outscored Yale by 19.

Following a Samson Aletan ’27 layup to pull the Bulldogs within two, Rhode Island hit a three and a tip-in two to stretch their lead to seven. Yale, however, answered in kind, with two Aletan free throws and a pair of threepoint jumpers from Devon Arlington ’26 and Jordan Brathwaite ’27 enabling the Bulldogs to claim the pole position, albeit by a razor-thin one-point margin at 26-25.

After trading points, the teams were knotted 29-29 when Isaac Celiscar ’28 received a kickout pass from Aletan, put up a shot from beyond the arc, and drew a foul as he came down. Watching from the floor, Celiscar erupted into celebration as the shot went in. Celiscar converted the free throw after to complete the four-point play in what should have been a game-changing momentum swing.

Instead, the Rams answered back with a Jahmere Tripp three to return the game to a single-score difference, 33-32. Yale pieced together a pair of layups and some free throws to enter the half with a 46-40 sixpoint lead. The Bulldogs played team basketball, with nine of their 13 field goals in the first half coming off assists.

The best assist of the night came in the second half, when Trevor Mullin ’27 dished a no-look flick to Aletan, who slammed it home to give the Bulldogs a 48-40 lead out of the break. A Mullin jump shot on the next possession extended the advantage to ten with 18:40 to play. But that was Yale’s largest lead of the night. The Rams scored on their

next three possessions, cutting the lead down to five by the 16:30 mark. Two minutes later, they went on a 6-0 run to reclaim the lead, 57-56.

Rhode Island’s defense then took over, holding the Bulldogs scoreless from 9:49 to 6:20. During that span, the Rams extended their lead to five. The score at the end of the stretch sat at 64-71. The Rams held their lead for the rest of the night, ending the game at 77-86.

Captain Nick Townsend ’26 led the Bulldogs in points and assists, with 18 and five, respectively. He also tied for the team lead in rebounds with six, three of which were offensive.

“We’ve just got to learn from it. We’ve got to respond. Always sucks to lose at home, and we didn’t cash in on that chance tonight, but we’ll have many opportunities the rest of the season, and we’ve got to go out there and come out with more energy next time,” Townsend said in a postgame interview. The Bulldogs will next take the court against the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay on Saturday at the Paradise Jam tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which the team will enter as the first seed.

Contact WALTER ROYAL at walter.royal@yale.edu.

FENCING: Bulldogs look to keep up strong form on road

BY AZARA MASON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

The Yale Fencing team will head to Long Island University for the Shark Tank Challenge/Tri-State Shark Showcase Tournament on Sunday to compete against Long Island University, New York University, St. Johns University and Wagner University.

Last winter, the men’s fencing team had a record of 18–7, and this year’s squad started with a blistering 6–0 run, walking away from Vassar Open Invitational undefeated.

The Elis began the tournament, which took place on Nov. 10, with wins against Drew University and Stevens College with scores of 25-2 and 20-7, respectively. The Bulldogs then overcame Lafayette

College 24-3 and took down Hunter College 26-1. Yale finished the day with a 27-0 victory against Yeshiva University.

“After months of preparation and long morning practices, we came in hungry to compete at a high level,” captain Jordan Silberzweig ’27 wrote in an email.

“We’re really excited to have an enthusiastic class of first-years,” Silberzweig added.

Last season, the Bulldogs entered the Ivy League tournament with an 18–3 record, before losing all four matches. In the subsequent NCAA championships, the men and women combined to place 11th out of 33 teams.

This year, the men’s team has three returning NCAA championship qualifiers: Tony Whelan ’26, Silberzweig and

Castor Kao ’28, who is ranked sixth in the country in foil competition.

In their meet at Vassar, the Bulldogs showcased the positive mentality that the team has been focused on maintaining this season.

“I appreciated how focused we were not only in terms of fencing, but also hyping up and coaching our teammates when our coaches were away supporting the women’s team with their competition,” Silberzweig said.

At the Vassar tournament, the women’s team won six of seven matches, securing dominant wins over Yeshiva University and Lafayette College with scores of 21-0 and 20-1, respectively. They also took down Tufts 18-9 and both Wagner and Wellesley College 19-8, While Yale lost to Cornell by one, 14-13, the team recorded a win

against Brown, 16-11.

“The past meet went well. We beat six teams, including Brown, which set a really good tone for the rest of the season,” captain Amanda O’Donnell ’26 wrote to the News. “I’m excited to see what we can do at Ivy League Championships when we have two more of our starters back and have had more training time together.”

Last year, the women’s team had a 23–8–1 season record, remaining undefeated through the Yale Invitational and Brandeis Invitational. They only suffered two losses in their first 23 matches. While the team struggled in the Ivy League round robin tournament, they have now welcomed a strong recruiting class to complement their returners.

“On the women’s side, joining an

already strong group, we have four incoming first years that have been on a World Team, meaning they were ranked top 4 in their country for their age category at the end of the season and competed at World Championships,” O’Donnell wrote. Additionally, the team returns six previous NCAA championship qualifiers: O’Donnell, Alexa Drovetsky ’27, Anya Mehrotra ’28, Michelle Lee ’27, Audrey Lin ’28 and Kristina Petrova ’28 — who was an NCAA all-American in 2024 and took a gap year to play for the Ukraine World Team. The Bulldogs will head to Brooklyn for the Tri-State Shark Showcase on Sunday.

Contact AZARA MASON at azara.mason@yale.edu

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Elis struggle against Bobcats’ sharpshooting

BY AZARA MASON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

The Quinnipiac Bobcats opened a Tuesday evening game against the Bulldogs in the John J. Lee Amphitheater with strong energy and completed an 11–0 run to gain a 15–3 lead just five minutes into the game.

Yale attempted to disrupt the momentum by applying fullcourt pressure, but Quinnipiac continued to find answers and maintained control, closing the first quarter with a commanding 27–9 lead. The Bulldogs were never able to fully recover from the Bobcats’ fast start.

Though Yale ultimately did not overcome the margin, the Bulldogs still pushed. Lousia

Vydrova ’27 scored the first basket of the 2nd quarter, attempting to trim away at the Bobcat’s lead and bringing it to 29-11. However, the Bobcats’ offensive momentum continued throughout the rest of the first half.

Quinnipiac is averaging a 33.7 three-point percentage so far this season but shot 58.3 percent from beyond the arc in the first half — scoring 21 of its 43 points against Yale from deep. By halftime, the Bulldogs trailed 43–23. “We needed to do a much better job on closeouts and making their shooters uncomfortable,” leading scorer Ciniya Moore ’28 said. “Being more locked into personnel and communicating earlier on switches would’ve

helped take away some of those rhythm threes.”

Captain Kiley Capstraw ’26 opened the third quarter with unwavering intensity. Less than a minute into the frame, she attacked the basket, drew contact and earned a trip to the line. On the following defensive possession, with Yale still in its full-court press, she secured a steal. Just a few plays later, however, Capstraw suffered a hard fall on a rebound attempt, hitting her head with a Quinnipiac player coming down on top of her, which forced her out for the remainder of the game.

“We definitely felt a drop in communication without her out there—she brings such a steady presence,” Moore said about Capstraw. “We tried to fill that

gap by really playing hard for her and stepping outside our comfort zones. Everyone made an effort to talk more, be louder, and take ownership of the little things she usually handles.”

With Capstraw sidelined, Moore kept the Bulldogs fighting. After a scoring drought of over five minutes in the third quarter, she finally knocked down a three to cut the score to 48–26. A few possessions later, she buried a deep jumper, and on a later defensive trip she came up with a steal. In the final seconds of the period, Moore completed a look to Vydrova that brought the score to 54–30 heading into the fourth.

Moore’s five points and assist accounted for all seven

of Yale’s points in the third quarter. She finished the game with 16 points. In the fourth quarter, despite Yale outscoring Quinnipiac 16–15, the Bobcats’ lead remained out of reach. Freshman forward Dorka Kastl’ 29, standing at 6’2, made her collegiate debut and recorded two blocks, showing promise for the added interior presence she brings to Yale’s rotation.

Up next, the Bulldogs will travel to Providence to take on the Providence Friars (2–1) on Friday at 7 p.m.

Contact AZARA MASON at azara.mason@yale.edu

“Gratitude

New York politician argues for sanctuary cities at YPU debate

BY SASHA CABRAL CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Attendees filed into the 53 Wall St. auditorium on Tuesday for the Yale Political Union’s penultimate debate of the semester, in which New York City Comptroller Brad Lander spoke in favor of the resolution “Save the Sanctuary City,” which passed 95-16.

The YPU hosted Lander, who finished third in the June Democratic primary for New York City mayor. Now soon to be out of a job, the comptroller is considering running for Congress, according to reporting by the New York Times.

Lander is voluntarily facing trial for his arrest at 26 Federal Plaza after reportedly linking arms with a person Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers were attempting to apprehend.

“At the state and local level, we don’t set border policy. We don’t decide who can become a citizen or legal permanent resident. We don’t set protective status. We don’t do any of those things. That is, in fact, the prerogative of the federal government. But once people are in our jurisdictions, they are our residents,” Lander said at the union debate, speaking in defense of the legality of sanctuary cities.

At the debate, students sparred about the moral and legal reasons to support or oppose the resolution. Most of the student

speeches condemned the way ICE has treated immigrants under the Trump administration.

“No matter one’s personal policy position on immigration, I think the manner of immigration enforcement has been pretty horrific, pretty sickening,” Avi Rao ’27, the chairman of the Independent Party, said in his speech opposing the resolution.

Rao, who described himself as “strongly in favor of immigration,” posited that the support of immigration and rejection of ICE does not have to equate to automatic support for sanctuary cities.

“Sanctuary city policies do work until the federal government wants immigration enforcement to be uniform. At that point, the same policies that are meant to protect immigrants actually create more violence and fear,” Rao continued.

Elizabeth Shvarts ’27 posed a rhetorical question to the audience, asking if “mass deportation is the economically savvy option,” while also positioning morality at the forefront of their speech. They elaborated on how legality and morality have historically been at odds, particularly citing Nazi officers’ “just following orders” defense.

“This is not just a moral question. This is a blatant violation of existing federal law,” Shvarts, who spoke in favor of the resolution, said. “And in terms of a time to break the law, a time to break the law is when people’s human rights and dignity are being violated. Even if it means being arrested, not cooperating

with ICE is the thing to do. You should break the law in that instance.”

Lander recognized the divide between students regarding sanctuary cities while also acknowledging the general consensus in opinion on ICE’s recent actions.

“One thing I’m delighted to see is how broad the revulsion at ICE’s policies broadly are,” Lander said. “Regardless of how you feel about sanctuary cities tonight, I feel hopeful that the set of people here have a good sense of right from wrong, what’s lawful from what’s lawless.”

While there was a general denouncement of ICE’s activities, not all audience members were in agreement. In an interview, Garrett Warner ’27 expressed his dissatisfaction at the resolution’s passage. Warner, who is from North Carolina,expressed support for Trump’s actions in Charlotte, N.C.

“What’s happening in Charlotte needed to happen, right? American citizens have been suffering for a long time, and our laws have not been enforced in this country for my entire lifetime,” he said. “This is the first time in my 21 years of life that American immigration laws have been enforced, and I think that’s a wonderful thing, and it’s very sad to see almost the entirety of the political union disagree with that.” Warner also recounted his discontent at what he characterized as a lack of representation for people with his viewpoint on the stage.

Brad Lander previously represented a Brooklyn neighborhood on the New York City Council.

Contact SASHA CABRAL at sasha.cabral@yale.edu.

YCC passes proposal urging creation of Ukrainian Studies certificate

BY ASHER BOISKIN STAFF REPORTER

Yale College students may be one step closer to the chance to pursue a Ukrainian studies certificate, following a unanimous Sunday vote by the Yale College Council Senate in favor of a proposal outlining a five-course program centered on Ukrainian language and culture.

The certificate as proposed would offer a structured academic pathway for students interested in Ukraine but unable to take on the requirements of the Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies major, or REES, which currently demands 11 to 12 courses as well as language prerequisites. Supporters say the new program would also address concerns that Yale’s Slavic offerings concentrate heavily on Russia.

Nataliia Shuliakova ’28, the president of the Ukraine House at Yale, wrote in testimony that the certificate would fill a gap for students who “must currently search for knowledge about Ukraine across multiple departments with no cohesive academic structure.”

Shuliakova added that faculty who want to include Ukraine more substantially in their teaching “lack an institutional framework to do so.”

Unlike the REES major, which requires some Russian or eastern European language proficiency, the certificate would ask students to complete three courses in Ukrainian language, two courses on Ukrainian culture and short reflections on two cultural events. The structure follows existing models such as the Persian Studies certificate.

Saybrook Senator Brendan Kaminski ’28, who sponsored the

proposal, told the senate that the idea emerged from both his experience with the REES major and feedback from students who wanted academic recognition for their work in Ukrainian language and culture.

“I’m someone who was interested in the major and then dropped it because I could not physically do it,” Kaminski said at the meeting. Kaminski said the certificate would allow students in demanding majors to pursue regional study without taking on “pretty hefty” requirements. Kaminski also framed the certificate as part of a broader shift within Slavic departments nationwide “following Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine,” noting that many programs aim to “decolonize a lot of the academic material that has been published” and reduce the dominance of Russia-centered coursework.

Kaminski pointed to current REES offerings, most of which he argues focus on Russia, and said a Ukrainian studies certificate would “facilitate these conversations on decentering, a dominant Russian narrative.”

The proposal includes testimony from students, faculty and members of the Ukraine House at Yale who argued that Ukrainian language and culture deserve a dedicated academic home.

Ella King ’28, a student in “Cinematic Ukraine: Culture, Identity, and Memory,” described the certificate as a way to integrate coursework that currently exists “only in fragments across departments,” writing that such a program “would affirm Yale’s commitment to de-centering Russia-centric narratives.”

In a statement to the News, YCC Speaker Alex Chen ’28 offered his support for the proposal.

“The push for a Ukrainian Studies certificate only furthers the renowned hallmarks of what a Yale education should be for: the development of skills necessary for addressing humanity’s global issues, including in this case, studying and engaging with the complex geopolitical challenges and cultural landscape of Ukraine’s sovereignty and identity,” Chen wrote.

Faculty support for the legislation includes professor Claire Roosien, the director of undergraduate studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures and professor Olha Tytarenko, a Ukrainian language instructor. In July, the Russian government designated Yale an “undesirable organization.”

Contact ASHER BOISKIN at asher.boiskin@yale.edu.

At Buckley conference, critiques of universities echoed Trump

BY LEO NYBERG AND YOUSSEF MAZOUZ CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS

The 15th annual Buckley Institute conference last Friday brought to New Haven a range of conservative speakers and panelists, some of whom criticized Yale and other universities for alleged hostility to conservatives.

The Buckley Institute was founded in 2011 to promote free speech and serve as a platform for conservative thought at Yale, according to its mission statement. The conference featured panels on the nature of conservatism; a conversation with friends of William F. Buckley Jr. ’50, the namesake for the Buckley Institute; and a debate about whether President Donald Trump’s agenda is conservative. It

was capped by a speech from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ’01.

While the speakers steered clear of explicit calls for Trump to change or continue his attacks on higher education, many panelists and speakers voiced support for Trump’s efforts to influence elite universities.

Lauren Noble ’11, the founder and executive director of the Buckley Institute, wrote in an email to the News that Buckley’s mission had not changed under the current Trump administration, but that record attendance at this year’s conference was “a testament to the energy and enthusiasm around supporting free speech at Yale and across the country.”

In the debate on whether Trump’s agenda is conservative, Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor and for-

mer aide to President George W. Bush ’68, said he agrees with Trump’s calls to deport international students who protested against Israel’s war in Gaza.

“If you’re a guest in this country and we allow you to be here, it would be better if you didn’t engage in perpetual activity that was designed to bring about the downfall of this country and the downfall of western civilization,” Jennings said, earning a spirited round of applause from the audience.

Jennings’ sparring partner, Noah Rothman, a writer for the National Review, agreed.

“You have individuals who are not citizens of the country who are here on temporary status who jeopardize that status by engaging in ideological activities that represent a threat, as defined by the secretary of state,” Rothman said.

Conference speaker Eliana Johnson ’06, a former Fox News producer and editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, said that she does not believe universities can diversify ideologically through the leadership of university presidents and trustees.

“I don’t think the change is going to come from the trustees and the presidents. Because the presidents, as we’ve seen, are basically pulled into their faculty. And the faculty revolts if the president takes a line they don’t like,” she said. “And in many cases, the boards of trustees, they’re weak, and they agree with where the president wants to be and where the faculty members are. I’ve spoken to these people. They are not aligned in the direc-

tion of change and pressing for ideological diversity.”

Instead, Johnson praised the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure universities to change ideologically.

“What Trump did to change the equation was he started pulling taxpayer dollars from these schools,” Johnson said. “And I can tell you that we were talking about this before Trump was elected, that somebody’s just got to pull the taxpayer money.”

Unlike most of its Ivy League peers, Yale has not received direct threats to its federal funding attached to demands from the Trump administration.

When asked at a Family Weekend parent forum last month why Yale has been spared, University President Maurie McInnis said there was “no obvious answer” but suggested that the Buckley Institute’s presence at Yale might be a reason.

Beverly Gage ’94, a history professor and co-chair of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education, attended the Buckley conference. Gage said she was there in her capacity as co-chair of the committee and for her upcoming biography of Ronald Reagan.

While she said she disagreed with Jennings and Rothman on some points about the role of the university, she thinks the critiques are worth listening to.

“I do think it’s important to know that these narratives are out there,” Gage said. “And part of what we’re investigating as a committee is trying to understand, really, the full range of views and critiques.”

The Buckley Institute’s board of directors wrote a letter to McInnis in

June, asking her to place Noble, the institute’s founder and director, on the Committee on Trust in Higher Education. Noble was not placed on the committee. Gage previously told the News the committee is only composed of faculty members.

In his keynote speech, DeSantis said Yale’s free speech environment has gotten worse since he graduated. Johnson criticized what she called Yale’s relative lack of conservative thought, but said she was appreciative of her Yale education, citing the Directed Studies program as a highlight of her undergraduate experience.

Brian Allen GRD ’93 ’97 ’98, an art critic for the National Review, said that the field of art history has been infiltrated by “woke exhibitions” and victim mentality in a panel on whether conservatives can reclaim culture.

Allen cited Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential victory as a turning point for the museum industry, stating that “everybody became political” and adding that political activism through art was “reinforced big time in 2020.”

Allen went on to critique the “infestation of critical race theory” in art history, attacking the inclusion of themes of colonialism and oppression in the Yale Center for British Art’s new Hew Locke exhibit. The annual Buckley Institute conference was held at the Omni New Haven Hotel, located at 155 Temple St.

Contact LEO NYBERG at leo.nyberg@yale.edu and YOUSSEF MAZOUZ at youssef.mazouz@yale.edu.

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”

LIONEL HAMPTON AMERICAN MUSICIAN

Business owners say Restaurant Week increased lunch traffic

BY NICOLAS CIMINIELLO AND KELLY KONG STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Tourists and locals alike took advantage of fine dining discounts during New Haven’s Restaurant Week, which features 23 participating restaurants city-wide.

Market New Haven, a city partner organization that supports economic activity in downtown New Haven, manages Restaurant Week, which ran from Nov. 2 to Nov. 15. Four participants said that the event increased business, especially during lunch.

“After 18 years the promotion remains a fixture in the city’s dining calendar with many restaurants planning around it each season,” Bruno Baggetta, the chief marketing officer of Market New Haven, wrote in an email. “It consistently brings added activity to dining rooms and nearby businesses throughout New Haven, which is why the program continues to earn strong support year after year.”

According to Baggetta, any restaurant that adheres to the price points set by an advisory committee of participating restaurant owners can join Restaurant Week. This year, lunches were fixed at $25 for a twocourse meal and dinners cost either $45 or $55 for a three-course meal.

He also wrote that all restaurants contribute a moderate fee to offset marketing costs, as well as a donation to Connecticut Foodshare. The Wallingford-based food pantry coordinates with restaurants to donate surplus food to those in need.

This year’s donation was $5,000.

Joseph Iannoccone, the owner and executive chef of the Italian

restaurant Casanova, said that Restaurant Week was beneficial for the new business. During the twoweek event, he estimated that the restaurant served an additional 20 to 25 more customers for a weekday lunch than usual.

“For the students, it’s a nice thing,” Iannaccone said of the price discounts, which allowed customers to order a multiple-course meal without paying a typical fine dining price. “It’s all about exploring, getting new customers in and getting the word out.”

During Restaurant Week, a meal at Casanova cost between $20 and $30 less than it usually would, according to Iannaccone.

Iannaccone also said he was confident that the event drove up tourism in the city.

“It pulls people in from all over the place,” he said. “There’s a million more people coming to New Haven just because of Restaurant Week.”

According to Kenna Loren, the front of house manager for Melting Pot, another recently-opened downtown restaurant, Restaurant Week was an important way for new businesses to build community ties. Melting Pot is a franchised restaurant, specializing in its multiple-course fondue menu. The recently opened New Haven location is Connecticut’s only Melting Pot.

“We’re trying to participate in every event we can, just because this not only is our first year, but we’re locally owned and operated, so our owners really like to be involved in the community,” Loren said. “Just any event that we can participate in and be involved and network and meet other restaurant owners, we would definitely be

interested in.”

Moe Gad, the owner of downtown restaurants Pacifico and Villa Lulu, said that Pacifico was one of the first participants in Restaurant Week when it started 18 years ago. His second restaurant, Villa Lulu, joined the event this year.

Gad said that with the fixed price points, customers were able to enjoy lunch and dinner at around a 25 percent discount. The event led to around a 25 percent increase in customers, but a much higher one during lunch, according to Gad.

Sean D’Addio, the general manager of ZINC, said that

Restaurant Week brought a different spirit to the restaurant.

“In general, it’s a nice way to have people want to come out to restaurants, overall, and experience places that they may not have had the opportunity to experience in the past,” D’Addio said. “It’s really kind of a no-brainer. It brings business and makes the vibe in the restaurant itself feel a little more lively and uplifting.”

According to D’Addio, ZINC has recently undergone a transition, expanding from its classically modern American cuisine to one with more widespread influences. He pointed to this change as an

attempt to bring a renewed focus on the city’s burgeoning fine dining scene.

“We’re really looking to put New Haven back on the map, especially back on the map in the food scene, and elevate what we’re doing,” D’Addio said.

The participating restaurants spanned eight neighborhoods throughout the city.

Contact NICOLAS CIMINIELLO at nicolas.ciminiello@yale.edu and KELLY KONG at kelly.kong@yale.edu.

New Haven organization set to receive federal job training grants

BY NICK CIMINIELLO STAFF REPORTER

The New Haven-based workforce development organization Workforce Alliance has been awarded federal funding to expand on-the-job training and apprenticeships, including a recent grant of $1.5 million in federal funding for job training in the city’s highdemand industries, especially healthcare.

The News spoke to executives at the organization about the awards and their delays, an uncertain economic climate and the future of New Haven’s labor market.

The grant from the Department of Labor amounts to $8 million total for the state and was split

up between the state’s five workforce development boards, including Workforce Alliance, which serves South Central Connecticut. Although the grant was announced on Nov. 4 by Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo, the federal shutdown, which ended last week, has delayed the funds.

“These funds help Connecticut’s workforce stay highly trained and globally competitive,” Bartolomeo wrote in a press release. “It benefits both Connecticut and the nation.”

The awards were part of $86 million granted to 14 states by the United States Department of Labor. The funds are meant to support employee training in shipbuilding, artificial intelligence, manufacturing

and other critical, highdemand sectors, according to a U.S. Department of Labor press release. Connecticut was one of only four states to receive $8 million, the highest individual grant given.

Workforce Alliance CEO William Villano and Director of Special Grants and Projects Jill Watson said that the state’s emphasis on employer engagement and incumbent skills training likely played a role in its receiving the award.

“We really focused on community health centers and doing some work with them to grow their workforce,” Watson said about the application process. The grant is focused on “expanding workforces within certain industries,” she said.

Villano highlighted what

she described as a current uncertain economic climate and how it has affected the labor market and the hiring practices of local employers.

“Many of them have expressed that they still have a need for employees, but also many are hesitant and somewhat skeptical about where this economy is going,” Villano said. “It’s tough both for the job seeker and the employer.”

While Villano said that Connecticut had seen an upward trend in manufacturing after the nationwide downturn in the early 21st century, regional hiring has regressed.

According to the 2025 Connecticut Manufacturing Report, manufacturing employment in Connecticut fell by 1.2 percent in the 12 months before August 2025, compared with increases of 1.9 percent and 2.8 percent in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

“They’re just kind of in a slowdown,” Villano said. “Tariffs and uncertainty about whether or not we’re headed for a recession” are part of the equation, he added.

The state press release mentioned “AI integration” specifically as part of the funding in both manufacturing and IT programs, as well as “other skilled trades with AI integration.”

Villano said he is not yet concerned that AI will be destructive for the regional labor market.

“We haven’t seen a whole sector of occupational areas totally eliminated because of AI,” he said. “I think we will at some point, but right now, I don’t think people have incorporated AI broadly.”

Workforce Alliance’s programs for job seekers and on-the-job training have expanded to include AI skills.

“AI is not going to replace someone. The person who knows how to use AI is going to replace them,” he said.

While there has been a recent increase in biosciences investment in the region, Workforce Alliance is focused on other sectors.

“It’s not an easy field to

get into,” Villano said of the bioscience sector. “There are really no entry-level jobs without, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree, and more likely a master’s degree.”

“We do a lot of short-term training,” he added.

Nevertheless, healthcare is likely to be the fastest growing labor market in the state, Villano said.

“The biggest demand for us right now is in healthcare. Yale New Haven Health System is the largest employer in the state,” he said. “They have a number of hospitals that they’ve acquired, and Hartford Healthcare is doing the same. I think at some point in the future those two will run everything in the state.” Watson also spoke about other new programs, including some funding the organization had received from the Department of Labor’s Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations, or WANTO, grant. Workforce Alliance was one of only seven organizations nationwide to win the grant, which focuses on expanding pathways for women in apprenticeship programs and “nontraditional” fields. However, similar to the issues with the current grant funding, complications within the federal government had delayed the distribution of WANTO funding.

“We submitted our application in November of last year, it was awarded to us in January, then it was withheld and we thought we lost it,” Villano said. “With the help of Senator Murphy’s office we finally got it in June.”

Before the shutdown ended on Wednesday, Villano said there might still be a delay in funding even after it ends.

“They’ve got to get a lot of people that have been laid off back to work and they’ve got to catch up, and where this particular grant is in the queue of things they need to do, who knows?”

Workforce Alliance is located at 370 James St.

Contact NICK CIMINIELLO at nicolas.ciminiello@yale.edu.

THROUGH THE LENS RESIDENTIAL

MEN'S HOCKEY: Bulldogs

BY LIZA KAUFMAN STAFF REPORTER

The men’s hockey team (2–3–0, 2–2–0 ECAC) will seek to add two tallies to its win column when it faces Brown (2–5–0, 1–3–0 ECAC) this weekend.

The Bulldogs will travel to Providence, R.I. for a 7 p.m. Friday night matchup at Brown’s Meehan Auditorium. The two teams will then play again the following night at 7 p.m. at Ingalls Rink in New Haven after the 141st playing of The Game.

Yale enters the weekend slate ranked No. 6 in the ECAC, while Brown trails behind at No. 8.

Following a disappointing New York trip, in which the Elis fell to Colgate (4–7–1, 2–2–0 ECAC) 3-4 in an overtime nailbiter and dropped their game to Cornell (4–2–0, 3–1–0 ECAC) 2-5, Yale will seek to rebound by claiming an away victory on Friday night and maintaining an undefeated streak at home on Saturday at The Whale.

Brown enters the weekend having played the same two teams as Yale last weekend. While the Bulldogs were neck and neck with the Raiders on Friday in Hamilton, the Bears took on the Big Red in Ithaca. Brown suffered a devastating

1-4 loss at Cornell. The Bears’ offense was no match for the Big Red’s defense, struggling to find the back of the net. The team’s only goal came in the third period. Following Friday’s loss, Brown then traveled to Hamilton while the Elis went to Ithaca. At Colgate, the Bears could not tally even one goal on the Raiders’ goalkeeper Reid Dyck, concluding in a shutout 4-0 victory for Colgate.

The Bears have struggled to find their rhythm on the ice this season, with a 2–5 overall record. Brown opened its season with two losses at the Air Force Academy (5–6–1, 2–4–0 AHA).

The team bounced back in its home opener against Ivy rival Princeton (3–2–0, 0–2–0 ECAC), downing the Tigers 2-1.

The team then suffered three straight losses to Quinnipiac (7–3–2, 1–1–0 ECAC), followed by Cornell and Colgate. However, in their mid-week matchup on Wednesday night, the Bears took down Alaska Anchorage (3–7–0, 0–0–0 Independent) 5-2, following a three-goal thirdperiod surge.

In the history of the matchups between the two teams, Yale leads the all-time series 27–15 and holds an 18–5 record at home.

face Brown

When the two teams faced off last February, Brown claimed both victories. However, with Brown’s early struggles this season, the upcoming weekend offers the Bulldogs a chance to turn things around and advance their standing in the conference.

On the Yale side, forward Ronan O’Donnell ’28 has powered the offense, scoring four goals, three of which came last weekend. Captain David Chen ’26 and Donovan Frias ’28 have each tallied two. Iisai Pesonen ’27 leads the team with three assists, and Noah Pak ’28 has excelled in the net with 99 saves and just 7 goals, leading to a 93.4 save percentage that earned him ECAC goalie of the week following the team’s two major upsets over Quinnipiac and Princeton.

Charlie Gollob is the Bears’ top scorer with three goals, followed closely by Ben Poitras, Brian Nicholas and Ryan St. Louis, who have each tallied two goals this season. Ivan Zadvernyuk has notched five assists, while Brown’s starting goalie Tyler Shea has a 91.9 save percentage from 159 saves and 14 goals. With Yale’s offense beginning to click and Brown still searching for consistent production, the individual battles between each team’s leading scorers and goalies will shape the tone of the series. Puckdrop is slated for 7 p.m.

Friday in Providence and 7 p.m. on Saturday in New Haven. Contact LIZA KAUFMAN at liza.kaufman@yale.edu.

WOMEN'S HOCKEY: Yale to play five away games over Thanksgiving break

BY AUDREY KIM CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Yale’s No. 14 ranked women’s ice hockey team (6–3, 3–3 ECAC) will face the St. Lawrence Saints (5–8–2, 4–2 ECAC) and the Clarkson Golden Knights (7–5–1, 3–2–1 ECAC) this weekend in upstate New York.

The Bulldogs will begin the weekend by facing off against the Saints on Friday at 6 p.m. in Canton, N.Y. While St. Lawrence is unranked in the national poll, they have five wins this season, including one

over No. 12 Colgate (6–7–1, 2–3–1 ECAC), a team Yale also beat in an overtime game.

The following afternoon, Yale will take on No. 11 Clarkson, a team that has fallen to both Dartmouth (2–7–1, 2–5–1 ECAC) and Princeton this month. Yale defeated Princeton in a 4-3 overtime match in October, and the Bulldogs beat the Dartmouth Big Green 5-0 last week.

Three days later, the Bulldogs will travel to New Jersey on Tuesday as they attempt to secure a second victory this season over the Princeton Tigers

VOLLEYBALL:

BY RACHEL MAK STAFF REPORTER

Three months into her collegiate career, freshman star Ava Poinsett ’29 has already made a name for herself in the Yale volleyball record books.

After earning her sixth Ivy League rookie of the week award,

Poinsett was unanimously named Ivy League rookie of the year. She was the only first year in the conference to be named to the all-Ivy first team and the only Yale first year to receive an all-Ivy team honor. Since coming to New Haven, Poinsett has proven herself as a force to be reckoned with on the court. She is an all-around

(6–2, 4–2 ECAC), a team they beat in a 4-3 overtime win last month. Carina DiAntonio ’26 scored her fourth goal of the game to seal that game for Yale.

To close out Thanksgiving week, the Elis will stay close to home as they partake in the Nutmeg Classic hosted at UConn. The Nutmeg Classic features four elite collegiate hockey teams, all of them from Connecticut. Yale, UConn, Quinnipiac and Sacred Heart compete in the tournament each year and rotate hosting the event.

The Bulldogs will take on

player that helps the Bulldogs with passing, blocking, serving and more.

“As a setter, it is so nice to have someone as reliable as Ava,” captain Halle Sherlock ’26 wrote to the News. “She’s just a steady rock on our team, and she knows how to find a way to score, which is really valuable.”

Poinsett concluded the regular season leading the Ivy League in multiple statistical categories tracked over conference play. She is first in the conference in kills per set, with 291 total kills on the season. She is also first in aces per set, with 36 total, and posted a conference-wide, season-high six aces against Northeastern in September. She is third overall in points scored, with 4.12 points per set, and first when going up against Ivy League opponents, with 4.36 points per set.

Poinsett grew up in San Diego — a hot spot for youth volleyball — where she began playing volleyball at the age of 10, following in her sister’s footsteps. She joined Coast Volleyball Club and helped her team to the national championship in her senior year of high school. Playing for a competitive team in such a com -

Sacred Heart University (4–7, 3–6 NEWHA) on Friday. If Yale wins that game, the Bulldogs will take on the winner of the game between No. 7 Quinnipiac and No. 9 UConn.

While the Nutmeg Conference games are considered non-conference and will therefore not affect Yale’s standing in the ECAC, a victory over any of these top teams would give the Bulldogs momentum needed to climb the national rankings.

In a recent women’s college hockey poll, the Bulldogs still rank inside of the top 15,

although they have moved back from the No. 10 spot to the No. 14 spot after their loss to Harvard (5–4–1, 3–4–1 ECAC) last week. Yale will be looking to improve not only their national ranking in the coming week, but also their conference ranking. St. Lawrence, Clarkson and Princeton all play in the ECAC, in which six of the conference’s 12 teams are ranked in the nation’s top 15.

Contact AUDREY KIM at audrey.kim.ajk34@yale.edu.

petitive state helped Poinsett in her transition to playing at the collegiate level. When Poinsett began thinking about playing collegiate volleyball, she wanted to play at a school where she could balance highlevel academics and volleyball.

“I didn’t want to go to a school that just prioritized volleyball because I know that my education will shape my future far beyond the court,” Poinsett said.

On her official visit to Yale’s campus, when she met the team, Poinsett knew she would want to spend her collegiate career with teammates who were driven both on and off the court. Just as Poinsett thought Yale was a great fit for her, head coach Erin Appleman thought Poinsett was likewise a perfect fit for the program.

“I thought she was a great all-around player. She could hit, block, pass at a high level,” Appleman wrote to the News.

“The recruiting process was very fun, getting to know the person behind the great volleyball.” Appleman also praised Poinsett’s adjustment to the fast pace of collegiate volleyball, as she developed her shot selection and became more assertive in serve receiving throughout the season.

“I think she has gotten more comfortable with more responsibility, and with trusting her instincts,” Appleman wrote.

On the court, Poinsett is humble about her skill, attributing her success to her team and the bond they have built through the competitive nature of their practices. She is able to rely on her teammates both on and off the court and said that the older players had a significant role in helping all of the team’s first years transition to life as student-athletes at Yale.

“They’re really supportive, and I know I can trust them in high-pressure situations to give me great advice and just calm me down,” Poinsett said.

The continuous competitive effort of the team has paid off in recent years. They have won the Ivy League title the past three years and are looking to repeat this season.

Poinsett and the team will face Cornell on Nov. 21 in the first round of the Ivy League Volleyball Tournament.

Contact RACHEL MAK at rachel.mak@yale.edu.

THE GAME

Friday,November21,2025

On Saturday, the most historic rivalry in collegiate sports will continue, with a shot at the playoffs on the line for the first time in decades.

THE GAME

Yale, Harvard battle for Ivy League title

BY BRODY GILKISON STAFF REPORTER

Team 152 will be playing its final regular-season game at the Yale Bowl on Saturday, and The Game will be one of the highest-stakes contests in recent history for both of the teams involved.

The No. 25-ranked Bulldogs (7–2, 5–1 Ivy) will host No. 10 Harvard (9–0, 6–0 Ivy) in a matchup of the Ivy League’s premier teams. Having first met 150 years ago in 1875, this will be the 141st matchup between the rivals. Yale leads the head-to-head rivalry 71–61–8, and the Elis also have a record-high 18 NCAA-recognized national championships compared to the Crimson’s eight.

This year, for the first time in 80 seasons, both teams have a chance to earn another championship and be crowned the champions of college football. Last offseason, the Ivy League voted to allow its football teams to take part in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, which had previously been outlawed since 1945.

Yale, with a win over Harvard, would earn the Ivy League’s allocated automatic-qualifying bid to the playoffs, while Harvard would likely make the playoffs with or without a bid due to its high ranking. In a historic season for the conference, it is possible that the Ivy League will send not just one, but two teams to the postseason.

Nothing new

Being the underdog is nothing new for Yale. Just a season ago, the unranked ’Dogs shipped up to Boston and wiped the floor with the No. 17-ranked Crimson. Going into The Game last season, the conference championship was out of reach for Yale, and the playoff rule change had yet to happen, so the Bulldogs were playing for themselves.

But this year, with more riding on the game and an opponent that is even stronger — at least according to Vegas — it could be easy for the Bulldogs to get distracted and thrown off their game. But Team 152 appreciates the stakes.

“I like that, we are the show,” star defensive back Abu Kamara ’27 told CT Insider in an interview. “That is the kind of vibe I will get when I am playing in front of big crowds, so I kind of lean into that a little bit.”

Last year in Harvard Stadium, Kamara helped an injured Yale secondary take down the Crimson with countless dazzling plays, including a picksix off a Jaden Craig pass to help

BY ISOBEL MCCLURE STAFF REPORTER

Yale’s top administrators are confident that the Bulldogs will extend their Yale-Harvard game winning streak this weekend.

University President Maurie McInnis predicts that Yale will “prevail” over Harvard in The Game with a winning score of 31-27. Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis similarly said that he expects a win from the Bulldogs, through a close game with a 24-21 final score.

“Who do I think will win?

swing the momentum heavily in the Bulldogs’ favor. This year, Kamara has continued to play up to his preseason All-American honors, wreaking havoc all over the field and causing headaches for opposing offenses.

Another star of last year’s contest who could be a key player for Yale is captain Josh Pitsenberger ’26. The running back leads the Ivy League in both rushing yards and touchdowns this season, and he has been picking up accolades and honors left and right as he continues to dominate. Many Bulldog faithful remember Pitsenberger’s 39-yard touchdown in Harvard Stadium, where he took a short screen pass to the house, cutting back and forth in front of a roaring Yale student section until he crossed the goal line to help cement Yale’s lead. Yale will need more of Pitsenberger’s hard-nosed running to help score points against a tough Harvard defense.

Previewing the Crimson Without a doubt, the Crimson have put together a solid squad. Yet, while still undefeated on the season, some cracks have started to appear in Harvard’s foundation.

One of the team’s and league’s biggest stars this season quar-

terback has been Jaden Craig. Craig, a senior, has thrown for 2,456 yards and 21 touchdowns through nine games this season and has been picked off just five times.

Yet, despite his impressive statistics, the Yale-Harvard game might be Craig’s kryptonite. In his last three years with the Crimson, Craig has yet to end a season without a Yale field rush following Bulldog victories in The Game.

On the defensive side of the football, Harvard has been one of the best teams in college football. The Crimson have allowed just 98 yards per game on the ground and only 184 yards per game through the air this season, which puts Harvard at the top of the Ivy League and in the top-five in Football Championship Subdivision.

However, even high-caliber units have their flaws. The pass-rush, while top three in the conference, has been Harvard’s weakness all season. With just 20 sacks this year, many coming against subpar opponents in garbage time, the defensive line has not been able to generate constant pressure at a high rate against quality opponents. Last week, against a weaker Penn team, the Crimson surrendered 43 points, over 400 yards of offense, and did

not sack Penn quarterback Liam Penn a single time.

Yale, whose offensive line has been impressive all season, has allowed just six sacks, while also opening gaping holes for their rushers. The Bulldogs could set the tone for The Game early in the trenches and put stress on the Harvard defense.

Bulldogs by the numbers

While Yale has a few returning stars that played big roles in last year’s victory, the team has several new faces, as well.

One of the biggest additions of the offseason was quarterback Dante Reno ’28, the son of head coach Tony Reno, who transferred in from South Carolina over the summer. This season, Dante Reno has thrown for 1,767 yards and 14 touchdowns and has only been picked off six times. He is rated the second-best Ivy League signal caller in terms of efficiency, trailing only Craig.

Reno’s two favorite receivers are also taking on big roles in The Game for the first time in their Yale careers. So far this season, Nico Brown ’25 has hauled in just under 800 yards and caught a league-leading nine touchdowns, while Jaxton Santiago ’28 has brought in four touchdown receptions and over 500 yards as well.

Combining the strong air attack with Pitsenberger’s ferocious ground game, the Yale offense is in a good place to fight back against a strong Crimson defense.

On Yale’s defense, there has been no shortage of new talent on that end, either. After the departure of several stars, namely Tamatoa McDonough ’25, Jake Biggs ’25 and Dean Shaffer ’25, the Bulldogs have

adopted a next-man-up mentality. Defensive lineman Zeke Larry ’27 has quickly become a star this season, leading the Ivy League in sacks with 9.5. Cornerback Brandon Webster ’27 has also emerged as a sort of Swiss Army Knife for Yale, locking down some of the league’s best receivers on the outside while also racking up a handful of sacks this year.

“We don’t feel as if we’re underdogs,” Webster said. “The guys have just been focused on keeping it YvY and doing what we do well. Of course, we respect our opponents, but we’re just keeping the main thing the main thing, which is executing our gameplay and worrying about us.”

Second on the team in tackles, linebacker Phoenix Grant ’27 has also made his presence felt on defense this year. In his first year seeing significant playing time, he has racked up 75 tackles so far and has collected a few sacks and an interception.

“I think all the young guys are ready for the moment; we’ve been treating this week just like any other week,” Grant wrote to the News. “It’s YvY 10, and at the end of the day, as long as we play our brand of football, it doesn’t matter who steps out there or how many people are in the Bowl, we’ll be able to execute at a high level.”

Saturday will be many of the players’ first times seeing significant time in the rivalry matchup, but the Bulldogs appear to be prepared for what’s to come.

The Game kicks off at noon at the Yale Bowl on Saturday. It will be televised on ESPNU.

Contact BRODY GILKISON at brody.gilkison@yale.edu.

As the song says: ‘Harvard’s team may fight to the end, but Yale will win!’” Lewis wrote in an email to the News, while acknowledging that Harvard is currently undefeated. “History buffs will note that Yale has won more than half of the 140 games so far, including the last three.” Lewis said he is a “big fan” of the Bulldog Walk — when the Yale players are led onto the field by their captains, the marching band and Handsome Dan. He noted that the tradition, which occurs in other matches, is particularly “historic” during the Yale-Harvard game.

McInnis, Lewis predict Yale will beat Harvard

“It’s the season’s last contest and a chance for seniors to finish strong,” Lewis wrote.

The Bulldogs currently stand at a record of 5–1 in the Ivy League, with the Crimson just edging them out at 6–0.

McInnis wrote that she plans to attend The Game with her hus-

band, Dean Johnson, and predicts that the competition will be “close.”

“I want the students to know how proud I am of them and how much our community is behind them,” McInnis wrote, noting that she learned last year of the “longstanding tradition” that the president relays “words of inspiration with the football team in the days before The Game.”

When asked what advice she would give to first-year students attending The Game, McInnis said she hopes that first-year Yalies “take it all in and enjoy being part of this great tradition.”

She expressed gratitude for alumni returning to cheer on the team and this contribution to Yale’s traditions and community.

“The best advice I have for students attending the game is to dress for warmth and eat a big breakfast—the dining halls are all open for hot breakfast on Saturday,” Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86, the secretary and vice president for university life, wrote in an email on Wednesday.

Ferentz Lafargue GRD ’05, an associate dean of Yale College, echoed the remarks, describing The Game as “tradition unlike

any other.” He wrote that first years from across Yale College and the University’s graduate and professional schools should be “prepared to marvel at the experience, and it’s perfectly fine to do so.”

“A lot of people work hard to make the weekend happen, and the forms of joy can range from indulging in some cotton candy or kettle corn at the concession stands, striking up a conversation with some alums or classmates who you’ve just met because they are seated near you, or watching your best friend perform in the band or as a cheer leader,” Lafargue wrote in an email.

He wrote that he plans to attend with his two daughters. His younger daughter, Ella, is “constantly looking for any bit of Yale supremacy to hold over her mom, who had the audacity to attend grad school at Harvard,” he wrote.

Saturday’s contest will be the 141st Yale-Harvard game.

Olivia Woo contributed reporting.

Contact ISOBEL MCLURE at isobel.mcclure@yale.edu.

HOME TEAM

For faculty who went to Yale, the Game is a chance to reconnect

BY JAEHA JANG STAFF REPORTER

This weekend, history profes -

sor Jay Gitlin ’71 MUS ’74 GRD ’02 will be “socializing with people more than ever before.”

According to Gitlin, he has been receiving emails all week from former students who are returning to New Haven for The Game, and he has dinners and tailgates planned with his classmates throughout the weekend. While The Game was “all part of a social calendar” during his undergraduate years too, Gitlin said it is now a “quintessential opportunity” to reconnect with friends and former students.

Six faculty members who graduated from Yale College told the News about what it’s like to

BY LIZA KAUFMAN STAFF REPORTER

Since taking the field at the Yale Bowl in his freshman season, Team 152 captain Josh Pitsenberger ’26 has been an asset to the Bulldogs’ offense.

“He will be remembered as one of the best backs in Ivy history and at Yale of all time,” wide receiver Mason Shipp ’25 said in an interview. “As a leader, he’ll be remembered as somebody who always had your back, always knew what the team needed to find a way to ignite us, and then as somebody who’s always very reliable on and off the field as a person.”

Pitsenberger wasted no time making his mark at both Yale and in the Ivy League. In the 2022 campaign his freshman year, he played in all 10 games, tallying 667 rushing yards and seven touchdowns — impressive numbers for a first year.

His breakout came early. In his second game donning Yale blue, he rushed for 93 yards and three touchdowns against Cornell. His standout moment came in the penultimate game of the season, when he ran for 108 yards against Princeton and one touchdown, contributing to Yale’s 24-20 victory over the Tigers at the Bowl.

Pitsenberger’s freshman season garnered him major conference accolades, including Ivy League rookie of the year, four Ivy League rookie of the week selections, first team all-Ivy and Yale’s Charles Loftus Award, which is presented to the most valuable player of the first-year class.

Nationally, he was named as a finalist for the Jerry Rice Award, a prestigious award that recognizes the Division I football first year of the year, and named to an all-America team of Football Championship Subdivision first years.

Pitsenberger’s sophomore season was defined by resilience. Despite missing two games due to injury, he still finished with 448 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, tied for second-most in the Ivy League. His walk-off touchdown in double overtime against Princeton, part of a 131-yard, three-touch -

return to the annual Yale-Harvard game. “I’m older, and I have a lot of students and former students, and I’ll be very busy talking to everybody,” Gitlin said in a phone interview. “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to root and cheer for something larger than yourself. It’s one of those occasions where you can wave your Yale flag and say, ‘Yay, go blue,’ you know?”

Economics professor Joseph Altonji ’75 said he tailgates every year with his closest classmates, including his firstyear roommates. The Game and alumni reunions are the “two big events” in which classmates can reconnect, he added.

Global affairs professor Ted Wittenstein ’04 LAW ’12 also wrote in an email to the News

that his Yale College class continues to host a tailgate at The Game.

“I suspect that this family-friendly gathering with our children is a bit different than the Yale student experience,” he added. “We look forward to joining the Yale fans in reminding our Harvard colleagues about ‘School on Monday.’”

He and one of his undergraduate roommates plan to spend Friday night together with their families and head to the Yale Bowl together on Saturday morning, Wittenstein wrote.

Wittenstein added that some of his best memories from The Game come from his time with Alyssa Greenwald ’03, his girlfriend in college and now his wife of 17 years. According to Gitlin, foot

ball games were often places for dates. Yalies would pick up women from Smith, Mount Holyoke or Vassar from the bus station, go to a football game, have dinner in a residential college and go to a dance together, he said.

“You asked different people out to the games, and, of course, the most serious dates, you saved for the Princeton game or the Harvard game,” Gitlin said.

Now, going to The Game is a “good excuse to cuddle up” with his wife, he added. Andrew Sherman ’71 GRD ’75, who said he was the head manager of the football team during his senior year of college and is now a senior research scientist in the computer science department, said that as an alumnus, he sees The Game less as a competitive athletic contest and more as a social event.

“Now I see it simply as an opportunity to tailgate with friends and so forth, and whether or not we actually win The Game is somewhat less important than it was back then,” he said.

According to film and media studies professor Charles Musser ’73 GRD ’00, The Game is also a good opportunity to reconnect with faculty counterparts from Cambridge. He has brought his Harvard colleagues to Yale for The Game, and he sometimes visits Harvard, too, Musser said.

“The Game is sort of like its own special place, outside of normal collaborations between academics that we all depend upon,” Musser said in a phone interview. “It’s like Christmas or something. It’s like this separate moment. That’s part of the sort of ironic or mocking part of

it, right? We pretend to have a rivalry when, in fact, that’s not really what is going on.”

Musser added that he sees the rivalry between Yale and Harvard as an “ironic gesture” towards universities in the Midwest and the South, which more strongly embody the American passion for college football. While The Game is a serious tradition, he said, he thinks it’s “kind of a mock rivalry” because Yale and Harvard are closely intertwined.

Yale School of Drama professor Katherine Profeta ’91 DRA ’09 said the first time she attended The Game was after she submitted her application to Yale. Staying at her first-year friend’s common room, she said, she attended many “crazy” social events, including the “best dance party I had ever been to in my life” hosted by the LGBT Co-op at Dwight Chapel.

“It’s a super valuable tradition, almost for ways you can’t even explain, just because traditions are things you know have repeated for years and years and years and you can come back to,” she said. “It creates just a ritual, something that people can gather around. Lots of things change, but this seems to be pretty reliable.”

Profeta said she may attend The Game this weekend to help Stand Up for Yale, an alumni group which she co-founded, gather signatures for a letter in defense of academic freedom.

According to Profeta, returning to The Game as a faculty member “makes me feel old, perhaps, but I really kind of love it nonetheless.”

Another difference, Altonji, the economics professor, added: Personally knowing members of the football team was an experience unique to his undergraduate years.

The character of Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby played football for Yale.

Contact JAEHA JANG at jaeha.jang@yale.edu.

From locker room to end zone, Pitsenberger sets the tone

down performance, cemented his reputation as a clutch player. His junior season was no different. Pitsenberger continued to lead the Elis’ offense, accumulating a team-high 796 yards on 147 attempts and scoring seven touchdowns. He recorded at least 70 rushing yards in six of nine games, with multi-game touchdowns against Cornell, Princeton and Harvard. As in his other seasons, his best statistics came against Princeton, running a season-high 159 yards and tallying three touchdowns.

In the 140th playing of The Game in Cambridge, Pitsenberger tallied two touchdowns that were crucial to Yale’s 34-29 defeat of the Crimson. His 11-yard second-quarter rushing touchdown gave the Bulldogs a 14-7 lead, while his fourth-quarter receiving touchdown became one of the greatest plays of The Game. Quarterback Grant Jordan ’24.5 sent a spiral to Pitsenberger, who pivoted and faked out the Crimson’s defense to score a 39-yard touchdown that widened Yale’s lead to 31-15. At last November’s team banquet, Pitsenberger was voted captain of Team 152 by his teammates.

“He has earned the respect of his teammates through his play, hard work, and commitment to Yale Football on and off the field. I can’t wait to get to work with him on building our team,” head coach Tony Reno said at the banquet, according to a Yale Athletics news release.

This season as captain, Pitsenberger has led Team 152 both on and off the field, delivering his best performance yet: 1,095 yards on 217 carries, 12 touchdowns and seven games with over 100 yards. He was named Ivy League offensive player of the week twice in a two-week span after standout performances against Penn and Brown.

“He’s averaging 120 yards a game,” ESPN football analyst and Yale football alumnus Jack Ford ’72 said in a phone interview. “It’s not that he runs for 180 against one team and 60 against somebody else.”

Ford highlighted Pitsenberger’s consistency and praised Pitsenberger’s toughness.

“The one thing I think he’s best at is that the first hit never brings him down,” Ford said. “He delivers the blows rather than taking the blows, and I think that’s why he’s been able to stay healthy.”

As a defensive player, Ford noted the significance of Pitsenberger’s 62-yard touchdown against Brown on Yale’s opening play.

“If on the first play, somebody busts one on you for 60 yards for a touchdown, and you knew going into it as a defensive game plan that you had to stop him, it really puts you back on your heels for the rest of the game,” Ford said. “Your one singular plan was to stop No. 7 and the first time he touches the ball, he takes it to the house for 67 yards.”

“He demoralizes defenses because they think they’ve got him, and they never do,” Ford added.

With last week’s 34th career touchdown in the Bulldogs’ 13-10 taming of the Tigers, Pitsenberger tied John Pagliaro ’78 for second all-time in Yale history. He also became the first Eli to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season since Zane Dudek’s ’21 1,133 yards in 2017.

But Pitsenberger’s impact goes far beyond his yardage. His leadership and consistency, teammates say, define him as much as his explosiveness on the field.

Teammate Nick Conforti ’26 called him “the most consistent worker and performer you will ever find, dependable and willing to do whatever it takes under

any circumstances,” Conforti wrote in a text message.

Having watched Pitsenberger from the start, Shipp echoed Conforti’s sentiment.

“His level of care and his level of commitment is a really special thing about him. He carries himself with a lot of passion. He’s a very hard worker. He’s the hardest worker on the field. He’s an outstanding leader,” Shipp said.

“He really really, really loves success and winning, and he’s going to be the hardest worker out there to help the team get there.”

Though soft-spoken off the field, Pitsenberger’s leadership on the turf speaks volumes, something hard for those who only see him off the field to see.

“He’s calm, he seems very cool and collected, but he’s very tenacious,” Shipp said. “He wants to get after people on the field. He wants to run through your face. He’s a running back. So that tenacity is something that if you don’t play football, you don’t get a chance to see it.”

Ford emphasized how rare it is for Yale’s captain to also be the team’s star player.

“Captains at Yale are not always your stars,” Ford said. “If the team is going to vote you the captain, you are clearly a leader. And if that guy happens to be your best player, that’s just a marvelous recipe for success, and I think that’s what you’re seeing play out on the field this year.”

The 141st playing of The Game at the Bowl will be Pitsenberger’s final appearance as a Bulldog against Harvard. But whether or not he ends the day with a ring, his place in Yale football history is already secure: a workhorse, a captain and a player whose legacy will sit alongside the program’s alltime greats.

The first Yale-Harvard football game was played in 1875.

Contact LIZA KAUFMAN at liza.kaufman@yale.edu.

FOR THE FANS

Football for dummies

How does a football game work?

BY AUDREY KIM CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

This Saturday marks the 150th anniversary of The Game, a football rivalry between Harvard and Yale that was first played in 1875.

American football is the most watched sport in the country and has been around since 1869, with the National Football League being formed in 1920. For many fans, The Game is the best opportunity to show school spirit and let loose in the middle of a long fall semester.

“Drink plenty at the tailgate and be extra loud when you cheer for Yale. A loud stadium helps the defense,” offensive lineman Charlie Humphreys ’28 said.

However, for first time fans, football can be confusing at times. For those looking to make informed remarks to friends about play on the field Saturday, the News has you covered with a football survival guide.

In simple terms, the offense wants to move the ball forward and towards their opponents endzone, and they get four chances, called “downs,” to gain a minimum of ten yards. If a team is not able to advance the ball by third down, they will usually use their fourth down to kick a field goal or punt, forcing the opponent’s offense to start further back.

If the offense is able to gain ten yards by fourth down, they will receive another first down. However, if they aren’t, the ball will be turned over to the oppos -

ing team, meaning that their opponent will now be on offense.

Turnovers can also happen when a defensive player intercepts a pass or if the offense fumbles, or drops, the ball and allows the defense to recover it.

“Watch the ball, offense wants to protect and score with it.

Defense wants to take it,” Humphreys said. “And when in doubt, shout ‘give it to Pits!’”

“Pits” is a nickname for team captain Josh Pitsenberger ’26, the starting running back for the Bulldogs, who has accumulated 1095 rushing yards this season.

In football, the offense has two ways to move the ball: passing and running. Pass plays occur when a player throws the ball to their teammate, an exchange that usually happens between a quarterback and a receiver.

“While football appears dangerous and complicated initially, it’s actually very easy. So whenever you hear someone in the crowd say ‘Why didn’t you catch that?’ It’s probably because that person in the crowd is much better than the players on the field,” Holden Taylor ’26 said.

Wide receivers, or wideouts, catch most of the passes during a game and line up furthest from the offensive formation, allowing them to run and get open for a pass from their quarterback. Tight ends, who act as dual receivers and blockers, often catch shorter passes as they line up at the line of scrimmage with the offensive formation, giving them the flexibility to either

get open for a pass or help block defenders.

Run plays happen when a player, usually the running back or quarterback, holds the ball and runs with it, trying to gain as much yardage as they can before getting tackled. Most run plays happen when the quarterback hands the ball off to the running back, but the quarterback can also choose to run the ball himself.

During run plays, the offensive linemen and tight ends attempt to block defenders, opening up space for the runner. The offensive line also blocks during pass plays, with the goal of giving the quarterback time to throw and protecting him from a tackle, or sack.

Like many other sports, football has both offensive and defensive players. However, a team’s offense and defense do not play at the same time. For example, when Yale’s offense — and quarterback — takes the field, Harvard’s defense will face

Yale cheerleaders look forward to new routine

BY JOLYNDA WANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Yale’s cheerleading squad is preparing for The Game with a revamped routine. Highlights will include a new uniform, dynamic prop work and more advanced stunts, such as higher pyramids and basket tosses. In addition to their performance, the cheerleaders will engage fans with a T-shirt toss. Members of the cheer team voiced their enthusiasm for performing at The Game and optimism for a potential Yale win.

“We’ve been counting down to this week because it’s our favorite game,” Riley Avelar ’27 said in an interview. “It’s the only game in the season where the Bowl is almost filled to the brim.”

Coach Ashlee Cole said she expects the turnout at The Game will be 10 times their usual crowd. While anticipating the pressure of performing for a larger audience, Cole said she wants the team to bring their “highest level of skill,” which will include more tumbling than the squad has done all season.

them, while Yale’s defense and Harvard’s offense waits on the sidelines. This may be confusing for some new fans.

“For a while, I thought the quarterback was always on the field,” first-year Mika Salomone ’29 said.

The scoreboard will usually have a football shaped marker to indicate which team is on offense, but when in doubt, saying “go Bulldogs!” always works.

The defense consists of three main parts: the defensive line, the linebackers and the defensive backs.

The defensive line starts opposite of the offensive line, and their goal is to pressure the quarterback and stop run plays.

Behind them, the linebackers will position themselves to stop short passes and act as a second line of defense for run plays.

The defensive backs will line up furthest from the defensive formation and will usually defend

“This is the most important game of the season, so we’re always looking to increase our skills, show a new level of pyramids and make sure that we’re the most entertaining,” Cole said in a phone interview.

Cole joined the team in September. Avelar noted that, before her arrival, the team could not practice tumbles or stunts without supervision. Despite the late start and being behind on skills, Cole said the team has adapted well to her coaching style and the culture she’s introduced.

“Now with Ashlee as our new coach, there’s a lot more structure and organization leading up to the game,” captain Gaby Lord ’27 said in an interview. “I feel like it’s taken a lot of stress off of our shoulders and made us a lot

against longer passes.

Offenses have two ways to score in football, touchdowns and field goals. A touchdown occurs when a team runs or catches the ball in their opponent’s endzone, earning six points for their team. After the touchdown, the team can choose to either kick a field goal from the three yard line for one extra point, or go for a two-point conversion, which is when the team attempts to make another touchdown from the two yard line for two extra points.

A field goal awards the offensive team three points, and requires the ball to be kicked through the goalposts behind their opponent’s endzone.

The Game will begin at noon on Saturday and will be streamed on ESPNU.

Contact AUDREY KIM at audrey.kim.ajk234@yale.edu.

more excited to be there.”

Lord described the conditions this year as the “best case scenario.” With a home-field advantage, a successful football season so far and good weather on Saturday, she encouraged students to come out and demonstrate school spirit.

“We have one day a year to be a sports school, to be obnoxious, to have the fun that I swear the majority of other colleges are doing every single weekend,” Lord said.

The Yale Cheer Team was founded in 1912, according to Yale Athletics.

Contact JOLYNDA WANG at jolynda.wang@yale.edu.

NEW HAVEN

BY REETI MALHOTRA AND KAMALA GURURAJA STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

University, city and state police officers and emergency responders will ramp up operations in a joint public safety effort for the Yale-Harvard game in New Haven on Saturday.

Nearly 90 New Haven Police Department personnel are scheduled to report to the Westville Music Bowl at sunrise on Saturday, according to an internal planning document. Alongside Yale police officers, they will patrol parking lots, manage traffic and provide safety and awareness procedures for some 40,000 or 50,000 attendees.

“The University’s top priority is the safety and security of everyone attending The Game,” Duane Lovello, Yale’s head of public safety, wrote in a statement. “The Yale Police Department is working closely with the New Haven and West Haven Police Departments, Connecticut State Police, and other public safety partners to maintain a safe and well-managed environment at the Bowl and surrounding areas.”

Yale last hosted The Game in 2023, when some 70 spectators began to wave Palestinian flags and 300 walked out of the Yale Bowl. New Haven police assisted Yale police officers in managing the demonstration. No arrests were made, according to New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson.

Public safety workers prepare for The Game

The incident was not without precedent — in 2019, hundreds of students and alumni across both universities stormed the field after halftime, urging Harvard and Yale to divest from fossil fuel companies. 50 protestors were forcibly removed from the premises and received misdemeanor summons for disorderly conduct.

For the following Yale-Harvard game hosted by Yale in 2021, officials newly prohibited “large banners or signs” and specified the possible arrest of spectators who tried to storm the field. These regulations were reaffirmed in an email to students from Dean of Student Engagement Burgwell J. Howard on Thursday.

Public safety incidents have also affected and increased police activity. In 2011, a U-Haul truck driven by Brendan Ross ’13, struck and killed a 30-year-old Massachusetts woman, Nancy Barry, during a pre-game tailgate.

A School of Management student and Harvard employee were also injured in the accident.

Referring to the incident, Jacobson explained that “there's a real need for the public safety aspect.”

“We’re out there, West Hav-

en's out there as well, doing traffic control, and parking lot safety and awareness and protection,” Jacobson said.

An unfounded bomb threat to Harvard amid global terrorist attacks also resulted in increased police presence and security procedures in and around the Yale Bowl in 2015.

Per Yale’s safety information for the game, tailgating on Saturday will begin at 9 a.m., when parking lots open. Each person is permitted to bring in one clear bag up to 12 inches by 12 inches by 6 inches large and a small, handheld purse. All bags brought into the tailgate and stadium are “subject to search,” the official webpage says. The Yale Bowl does not allow reentry.

Emergency and Yale Public Safety staff will also be present at a relief tent.

Alongside emergency service activity at the Bowl, American Medical Response, or AMR, will provide “uninterrupted 911 coverage” and “hospital transport services” for attendees.

“For Saturday, we have increased staffing and con

firmed communication plans with our public safety partners

Local businesses plan for weekend sales boost

BY OLIVIA WOO AND HARI VISWANATHAN STAFF REPORTERS

This Saturday marks the 150th anniversary of The Game, a football rivalry between Harvard and Yale that was first played in 1875.

A number of New Haven businesses are expecting large increases in revenue at the time of the Yale-Harvard game, with some stocking additional merchandise or increasing staffing to take advantage of the crowds of fans flocking to New Haven.

Islam Alzhougi, a server at Burgerway on Whitney Avenue, said that on the Yale-Harvard game day in 2023, the restaurant experienced a 47 percent increase in sales from those of an average Saturday. Burgerway will hire one extra chef and extend its opening hours this Saturday in anticipation of The Game, Alzhougi said.

Good Nature Market, a longtime student haunt on Broadway, experiences a 50 percent increase in sales on Harvard-Yale gameday, according to Tae Park, the store’s manager. The market has stocked 50 percent more goods than usual to prepare for the upcoming weekend, Park said.

“Visits to the Shops at Yale have increased by 15 percent in the past week alone, indicating strong interest in planning ahead for the weekend,” Alexandra Daum, the associate vice president for New Haven affairs and University Properties, wrote to the News.

According to Victoria Verderame, the communications director at the Greater New Haven Cham-

ber of Commerce, families who live across Connecticut come to The Game as a regular tradition.

It costs the University money in order to pay for tailgates, student events, food and security measures in the hours and days surrounding The Game, according to Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis.. When asked whether or not Yale experiences greater costs than revenue generated by the Game, Associate Vice President of Student Life Burgwell Howard said, “my supposition is that it costs us money to host The Game.”

“Yale College has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to feed everybody and make certain things available, add additional shuttles and the like,” Howard said. “It’s money that I think we have been willing to and are glad to spend because it’s important to our community.”

According to Howard, Yale College has changed spending allocations from 2023 in order to prioritize student health, safety and transportation, while eliminating costs on spirit merchandise and complimentary food at

Saturday’s tailgate.

This year, dining halls will be open for hot breakfast on Saturday for all Harvard and Yale students, regardless of their meal plans. Howard said that the change was implemented in order to ensure that students have food in their systems on the morning of The Game.

The tailgate lunch typically provided to students at the Bowl, however, will no longer be offered due to a lack of student demand in recent years.

More food will be available for purchase from tents at Satur-

to support efficient response and high-quality patient care,”

Michael Turcio, the operations manager for AMR New Haven, wrote in a statement. “We anticipate an increase in alcohol-related activities this weekend and encourage everyone to make responsible choices.”

Increased ambulance activity is expected due to excessive alcohol consumption among spectators, Jacobson said. The New Haven Fire Department and Yale New Haven Health have aligned response plans accordingly, according to Turcio.

All Yale University students are provided with one complimentary ticket to the Game, available for pick up at Payne Whitney Gymnasium with a valid student ID. Yale employees receive one complementary General Admission ticket.

Omar Sekkat SOM ’26 will be attending the game for the first time.

“The only safety concerns I would have are just related to the weather. It’s going to be cold and it might be raining,” he said.

Many Yale student organizations hold mixers with Harvard students the night before the

day’s tailgate than in past years.

According to Howard, tailgate tent rentals contribute little to University revenue.

“If the School of Management wants to host an event or the Alumni Office wants to bring in a tent, we might charge $2,000 or something like that for a rental site, but that requires a tent, that requires chairs, electricity, all these things,” Howard said. “So in the end, it’s a negligible profit that’s made when you rent out these because there are many other expenses.”

In addition to tent rentals and ticket sales, Yale Athletics collects revenue by charging for parking, which costs $20 per car, as well as for alcoholic beverages. This year, Yale Athletics has expanded its ability to serve alcohol, which will be available for purchase in four locations this

game.

“There’s a culture of going hard the night before,” Jarvis Xie ’26 said, emphasizing the importance of being responsible. “It’s easy to get lost before and after the game.”

Carolina Melendez Lucas ’27 has attended the game as a first year and a sophomore, at Yale and Harvard respectively.

“I think everyone should be prepared that cell reception doesn’t work. It was hard to find my friends and find my parents at the end. After the game with your friends, have a plan about where to meet up, when to meet up, because it will be hectic when you’re actually at the game,” she said.

Lance Joseph Anthony, a student at Harvard, expressed a similar concern, saying, “I’m honestly really excited. I don’t think I’m really scared for any safety reasons.”

He added: “The only thing is that I heard that the Yale Bowl doesn’t really have good service, so that’s probably the only thing I’m a bit concerned about, making sure my friends get to and from the Bowl together and don’t lose each other.”

Harvard's coach strangled a paper mache bulldog during his pregame pep talk in 1909.

Contact REETI MALHOTRA at reeti.malhotra@yale.edu and KAMALA GURURAJA at kamala.gururaja@yale.edu.

year compared to the two offered in 2023, Howard said.

According to Howard, Yale College will also be spending more money on shuttles than in previous years and has worked with the city to plan an efficient route to the Bowl. Despite these expenses, administrators expressed confidence in its ability to cover future game day expenses.

“Yale Athletics maintains a consistent fiscal approach, preparing effectively for both years when Yale hosts and years when it does not,” assistant athletic director Colleen Murphy wrote to the News.

Saturday’s game will be the 141st iteration of The Game.

Contact OLIVIA WOO at olivia.woo@yale.edu and HARI VISWANATHAN at hari.viswanathan@yale.edu.

BY PETER BURNS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

The Yale Bulldogs and Harvard Crimson will face off for the 141st time on Saturday in one of America’s most famous stadi -

ums: the Yale Bowl. Built in 1914, the Yale Bowl was the largest stadium by seating capacity for its time at 70,896, before renovations reduced it by approximately 10,000.

The Elis’ rivals call another historic venue their home: Harvard Stadium. Built 11 years before the Yale Bowl, the Crimson’s home turf was the largest concrete stadium in the United States before Syracuse University’s Archibald Stadium was built in 1907. However, it seats only 25,000 fans.

For players, the roaring crowds of the Yale Bowl feel different from the compactness of its Boston counterpart.

“The Yale Bowl is much more spread out,” offensive lineman

Stadium is built above ground and seats its fans vertically. It also has only three sides — there are no stands behind the northern end zone.

Submerged and surrounded by stands, the Bowl’s Class of 1954 Field is shielded from the wind.

In an email to the News, Yale football alumnus Marty Martin son ’85 recalled Harvard Stadium as a “cold, windy open horseshoe.”

Martinson, the team captain in 1984, told the News that, because the Bowl was dug beneath ground level, kickers with whom he played felt more confident, because they were shielded from the wind.

While the difference in wind exposure could affect current Head Coach Tony Reno’s playcall ing, it may not be a game-chang ing factor.

“It does not change how we play, exactly,” Charlie Humphreys ’28, a member of the team, told the News. “The field is still 100 yards.” Yale kicker Noah Piper ’29 has

BY TANNER BATTLE CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

While The Game is the biggest matchup of the season for the Yale and Harvard football teams, one of the most significant aspects of this event does not take place between the end zones. Before the whistle is blown, before the ball is snapped and before the first points are scored, crowds gather outside of the stadium to partake in the age-old tradition of tailgating.

Open to those with or without tickets — alumni, undergraduates, family, friends and everyone in between — tailgating before The Game brings together people from all different backgrounds ahead of the historic rivalry match.

The Yale-Harvard game acts as a reunion each year for Yale and Harvard affiliates hailing from different states and countries. Many graduating classes host tailgates — including the class of 1992.

“We have a core group that convenes for The Game every year, home or away, and we always encourage others to join us,” Andrea Martin ’92 wrote to the News. “We have some classmates who have literally never missed a Game since their first year at Yale, and each year we have at least one or two who haven't been since graduation. This year we have a classmate coming all the way from Australia!”

A group of football Team 152 parents will also host a tailgate. Maggie Yang, the mother of defensive lineman Dylan Yang ’26, told the News that she would arrive by 8 a.m. or earlier to start

setting up and “soaking in every second of the day.”

The parents group helps to add an extra layer of support and community for parents that live far away from Yale, according to Maggie Yang. She emphasized the comfort she feels knowing that other parents are looking out for one another’s children.

In New Haven, a city famous for its pizza, one tailgate has been driving in a pizza oven for 39 years in a row, cranking out anywhere from 35 to 50 pizzas each Game day.

“The oven has become its own character at this point,” Mark Allara ’90 wrote to the News. “It rolls in early in the morning—decked out with Blues Y’s, of course— and people flock to it as soon as the first heat radiates off the stones.” He added that “the whole group shares a slice as we pop the 6 liter grand cru Champagne as a sort of opening ceremony.” The commitment to this tailgate is serious. Allara wakes up at 5 a.m. on game day so that by the time people arrive at 9 a.m., there is pizza ready for them to eat.

“The oven is really just an excuse to bring people closer. Anyone can walk up, grab a slice, tell a story, and feel part of something.

If the oven has done anything, it keeps my roommates, classmates and strangers a reason to smile, to connect, and to make memories we’ll carry with us long after the final whistle,” Allara wrote.

This Saturday, Allara’s tailgate will be missing one of its founding members. For those involved, it presents the opportunity to remember and honor a man who

930 FT BY 750 FT

understood the tailgate’s ability to bring people together.

“In 2025, we are dedicating the tailgate to our roommate and pizza oven legend John Kennedy Bailey who died tragically in a car accident.

‘JB’ was amazing in his ability to discover shared experiences, friends, or love for his home state of West Virginia with anyone who showed up to the oven,” Allara wrote to the News.

No matter who wins or loses in The Game, the memories, bonds and traditions built by the morning tailgates will always carry the day. This year, tailgating outside the Yale Bowl opens at 9 a.m., three hours prior to kickoff.

DATA

Yale, Harvard lead Ivy League ahead of The Game

BY WILL FORBES AND ANAIKA WALIA STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Ahead of this weekend’s 141st installment of The Game — taking place 150 years after its inaugural 1875 match — data examined by the News provides a glimpse into what the top two teams may have in store for fans this Saturday.

The Bulldogs (7–2, 5–1 Ivy) will host the Crimson (9–0, 6–0 Ivy) at the Yale Bowl, kicking off at noon on Saturday. Both teams have excelled in conference play this year, with the Crimson coming to New Haven undefeated. After a 2–2 start early in the season, Yale elevated its play, having won its last five straight games and entering The Game with the second-best

conference record — their only Ivy loss coming a 17–16 nailbiter against Dartmouth.

With the top two conference records in the Ivy League, the Bulldogs and Crimson boast some of the best statistics among their competitors. Aided by two 59-point showings against Holy Cross and Stetson, the Crimson lead the Ivy League in scoring by far, with an average of 40.7 points per game.

Yale ranks third in the league, just behind Penn, with an average of 27.9 points per game. This dominance also translates to the other side of the ball. Harvard and Yale boast shutdown defenses, allowing just 15.1 and 16 points per game respectively — the two lowest averages in the league.

Although Yale ranks seventh in the league for total passing yards, sophomore quarterback Dante Reno ’28 is methodical when he does throw, limiting turnovers, completing a high percentage of passes and finding his receivers for touchdowns, which has yielded the second highest passing efficiency in the league — 147.2 — behind the Crimson’s Jaden Craig — 163.9. The Bulldogs and the Crimson are the only two teams in the Ivy League to have both an offensive efficiency above 145 and a defensive efficiency below 120. In short, each team has performed exceptionally on both sides of the ball.

Besides limiting opponents to just 16 points per game, Yale’s defense has been staunch against both the run and the pass. Senior linebacker Inumidun AyoDurojaiye ’26 leads the Ivy League with 91 tackles this season, while junior defensive end Zeke Larry ’27 holds the conference lead with 9.5 sacks. Accordingly, Yale as a team handily leads the league in sacks, with 32 on the season — or 3.56

sacks per game — 52 percent more than second-place Brown, which registered 21. The Bulldogs are second in the league to Brown in forced fumbles at 8, while the Crimson have snagged the most interceptions with 12. On the special teams unit, first year Noah Piper ’29 leads the Ivy League in field goals with 12, his two lone misses coming on a 43-yard try against Penn and a 46-yard try against Brown — both games the Bulldogs won.

His long on the season was against Cornell, when he booted a 50-yarder in the third quarter for his first ever college field goal try. Piper has gone 19–20 on the season on extra point attempts, and senior Nick Conforti ’26 went 10–11 during the first three games. For the Crimson, Kieran Corr has performed equally well — he has gone 36–37 on extra points and 11–13 on field goals, including a career long 53-yard game winner as time expired against Penn last week.

THROUGH THE YEARS

In addition to potentially becoming the first sole Ivy League champions since 2022, Yale also has the opportunity to fourpeat against Harvard for the first time since 1947, something the Bulldogs have accomplished only four times in the rivalry’s history. Yale’s longest win streak over Harvard was six straight, which was achieved twice from 1882–89 and again from 1902–07.

The Game wasn’t played in 1885 because Harvard temporarily banned football and again in 1888 when Harvard faculty refused to allow the team to travel to New York, which is why the former

streak spans eight seasons but only six games. Harvard’s longest win streak was nine seasons in a row, from 2007 to 2015. Saturday’s game will feature some of the best offense, defense and special teams that the Ivy League has to offer — at least according to the numbers. In 1957, Yale beat Harvard 54–0, the largest margin of victory in the rivalry’s history.

Contact WILL FORBES at will.forbes@yale.edu and ANAIKA WALIA at anaika.walia@yale.edu.

The Bulldogs’ offense is particularly multi-faceted, with weapons from both the air and ground attack. Workhorse Josh Pitsenberger ’26 leads the Ivy League in rushing yards — 1,095 — and touchdowns — 12. His complementary back, Wilhelm Daal ’26, ranks second in the Ivy League in yards per carry, racking up 346 yards on just 59 carries. Harvard divides most of its designed runs among a committee, with junior Xaviah Bascon receiving the lion’s share of carries. Backup quarterback DJ Gordon has essentially acted as a running back for the Crimson,

accounting for 381 yards on 70 attempts; he has not attempted a pass so far this season. Two of Reno’s favorite targets, Nico Brown ’26 and Jaxton Santiago ’28, rank in the top ten in the league in receiving yards, at 789 and 515, respectively. Furthermore, Brown is the only player to be in the top ten while playing in only eight out of nine games this season. The Crimson’s explosive Brady Blackburn, who has earned a whopping 20.3 average yards per catch on a campaign to 648 yards, will be another key offensive player to watch on Saturday.

ON CAMPUS

The definitive YALE-HARVARD sister college map

BY CHANEL MOHAMED CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

With the 141st Yale-Harvard football game upon us, the air is thick with the spirit of rivalry. On Saturday, students will fill the Yale Bowl with navy blue and crimson red for “The Game,” making the centuries-old competition feel urgent again. Our rivalry with Harvard is the oldest continuous collegiate rivalry in the country, and as such, even with the perhaps lackluster football, it is a cornerstone of American collegiate sports. As a first year, I am ecstatic to experience all that it has to offer, in New Haven no less!

As a proud Yalie, and Sillimander — yes, Silliman is the best residential college — I think Yale is objectively better for the following reasons:

- We have Handsome Dan who can fetch, wear sweaters and wink. Harvard’s mascot is a color, a literal pigment.

- We have buttery nights and Harvard has whatever Cambridge has to offer at 1 a.m.

- We have residential colleges that architecturally evoke a sense of tradition and history. Harvard has houses that visually don’t compare.

But what we’ve never had is the ultimate map to Yale-Harvard “sister college” pairings. This is a vibe-based, unscientific matching system that definitively maps the similarities between Yale’s residential colleges, a hallmark of our culture and Harvard’s housing system.

Below are the final pairings that I have come up with and my rationale for each.

Benjamin Franklin College and Mather House

To the people that don’t live there, this college and house remain enduringly mysterious — probably because no one is willing to make the walk all the way up Science Hill. Still, this pair works so well because they’re sleek and contemporary. The futuristic feel of Benjamin Franklin pairs well with the overly modernist tower in Mather.

Berkeley College and Lowell House

This is a true architectural matchup. Berkeley’s medieval atmosphere, for instance its wood paneled Swiss room, and Lowell’s grandiose bell towers contribute to the dignified and atmospheric feel of this pair.

Branford College and Eliot House

This is a refined, classy and intellectual pairing where gothic grace meets a neo-georgian

design. With Branford’s high arches and Eliot’s brick elegance, both of their courtyards look perfect in any season and both embody the Ivy League aesthetic.

Davenport College and Leverett House

Tucked away but providing one of the best spots to watch the sunset, this residential college and house pairing prioritize comfort over spectacle. They’re both warm and welcoming and share an air of calm confidence. Their residents look like they have the most organized google calendars and generally give off a “we have our life together” vibe.

Grace Hopper College and Kirkland Annex Whimsical is top of mind for me when I think about this pair. Hopper’s model where faculty live in residence matches well with the intimate House culture in the Kirkland annex. These spaces seem more light-hearted and relaxed compared to their Gothic cousins.

Jonathan Edwards College and Adams House Drama. Camp. A theatrical flair. These are the words that come to mind when I think of JE and Adams House. I think the gothic style of JE and its elaborate masonry that will thrill the most hardcore Harry Potter fan finds its aesthetic match in Adams House, which is characterized by its Gold Coast dormitory features.

Morse College and Currier House

These are true modernist sisters. Both look like concrete fortresses but on the inside are actually filled with creative chaos, warmth and vitality. They’re cool and strangely artistic to those that seek beauty in unexpected places.

Pauli Murray College and Dunster Annex

These spaces don’t rely on ivy-covered brick to impress onlookers. Instead they embrace being architecturally bright and new. Pauli Murray and Harvard’s modern towers share a contemporary feel. They are for the students who appreciate newness amidst tradition.

Pierson College and Kirkland House

Composed, stately and aware of their architectural splendor, Pierson and Kirkland house is a pairing whose prestige is quiet and not overstated. They share quiet courtyards, mood lighting and libraries that are drowning in

intellectual curiosity.

Saybrook College and Quincy House

Saybrook and Quincy are classic but unpretentious. They balance tradition with a lived-in charm. Rather than embodying a list of superlatives, like sportiest or oldest, these houses have a firm grip on their identity which is why they pair so well.

Silliman College and Winthrop House

And we’ve gotten to Yale’s best residential college. Massive, and thus impossible to miss, Silliman and Winthrop are called home by students whose seemingly genuine pride actually borders on being territorial. These are two stops you wouldn’t want to miss when you visit Yale and Harvard.

Stiles College and Pforzheimer House

Another pair of modernist siblings! These two share architectural designs that elicit polarizing opinions. Half of the campus will either love or hate their concrete style or 20th century design. But the fact that they dare to be different is what bonds them.

Timothy Dwight College and Dunster House

Both big personalities with small quad’s. TD and Dunster are the extroverts of their respective residential systems. They are cheerfully chaotic and genuinely warm.

Trumbull College and Cabot House

When I was thinking about Yale’s residential colleges I forgot Trumbull — sorry Trumbullians! — but I think that’s why it pairs with Cabot House so well. These two share the same “our irrelevance makes us and our sense of community stronger.” They both do their own thing, something slightly quirky, but have tangible student spirit.

Beyond prestige, architecture steeped in history and rivalry, these sister college pairings push us to reframe our understanding of the Yale-Harvard relationship. As each residential college and house finds its long lost sister, rivalry transcends blatant pettiness and instead becomes more personable, more fun.

So, this Saturday, when you meet a Harvard student at The Game, ask them the only question that matters: “Which house do you live in?”

Contact CHANEL MOHAMED at chanel.mohamed@yale.edu.

HOROSCOPES

BY KIVA BANK STAFF REPORTER

There is a brisk chill in the air, the barest hint of snow dusting the ground. Students frolic around campus, bundled in their cashmere-blend coats and scarves. These signs can only mean one thing: Football season is upon us. The stars say we will win the game. And by “we,” I mean the Patriots, six-time Superbowl winners, record 11 AFC championships, the greatest NFL dynasty to ever exist, etc. etc. We’re so back, baby. The Yale football team? Not so much. We’re going to need divine intervention to beat the Crimson devils when they visit this weekend.

Fortunately, there is a chance for the Bulldogs to turn things around against H-who-mustnot-be-named. The stars demand that H*rvard must lose more than its dignity and federal funding this year. To ensure their fate on the field, you must do as the horoscopes foretold:

Aries

You thought you met the love of your life during your Visitas days in Cambridge. Now you regret coming to the better university because you may have missed your one chance at true love. You’ve wasted time daydreaming about reuniting this weekend. Alas, you may not understand Latin, but the veritas is that they don’t remember you. Don’t worry, they’re probably stinky anyway.

Taurus Your high school rival reached out at the last minute asking to crash in your dorm before The Game, and you are unsure how to respond. Either say yes and endure 48 hours of snide comments about high school rankings, or say no and get subtweeted about “Yale elitists.” The choice is yours.

Gemini

Bringing out your best social performance is your preferred sport. For you, that means pretending to be a feminist. You think it is “woke” to refer to “GHeav” as the “G-spot.” Surprisingly, they’re pretty similar since they’re both harder to find when you’re drunk at 2 a.m. Do everyone a favor and don’t attempt either this weekend. Even H*rvard students will find you cringe.

Cancer You’re sad our beloved chief of police is leaving for a lesser university. Channel your emotions into screaming your heart out at The Game. They may have taken Anthony Campbell ’95 DIV ’09, but they will never understand school spirit. We have a real mascot, unlike that pilgrim monstrosity. While they look forward to timely warnings about the plethora of academic crime in Cambridge, we’ll look forward to victory.

Leo Your H*rvard hookup will land you in a sticky situation this weekend. The only Crimson that’ll be coming in your dorm is your period. Early. At least that unfortunate cock blocker will prevent you from drunken mis -

takes with anyone from an inferior institution.

Virgo

Your parents are visiting for The Game. You’re still tailgating like your blood type is Tito’s. You may have blocked them from your Instagram story but they are going to try to swing by anyway to “see how the students celebrate.” Good luck explaining why your jacket smells like Fireball.

Libra

You don’t know anything about football but that hasn’t stopped you from providing your friends with unwarranted commentary. Last year you asked if “downs” were a bad thing. Don’t bother trying to impress your crush. You WILL point at any player holding the ball and call him the quarterback. Just remember to clap when other Yalies clap.

Scorpio

You are putting your calculus skills to good use: figuring out how much alcohol you need to consume at 8 a.m. to be adequately numb by kickoff. You can’t sober up on the walk to the stadium, unless you want to feel every freezing second in the stands. Try pacing yourself. You want to remember at least one touchdown.

Sagittarius

The only game you’ll be participating in this weekend is of the drinking variety. You’re competitive by nature, but maybe don’t try to “win” this one. Your liver is not an athlete. Pace yourself before you end up becoming the halftime entertainment.

Capricorn

You are stingy and refuse to pay the frats that are hosting parties this weekend. Coolness comes at a price, but why is Sig Chi charging a fee to attend a “no taxation” party? Capitalism has made the “poor” finance bros hypocrites. Use your networking skills and make H*rvard students pay instead.

Aquarius

You chose preparing for The Game over your protecting your GPA. The Jell-O shots are made. The flyers have been posted. Yet you didn’t finish any of your assignments that were due before break. You wish Yale had the same grade inflation as the so-called “elite” institution does. At least our classes are legitimately challenging. The only thing challenging about Cambridge is the on campus party scene.

Pisces

Remember your actions have real consequences. You’re already romanticizing The Game as if you’re acting in the plot of a coming-of-age film. You imagine tears, triumph, heartbreak, maybe even a forbidden intercollegiate romance. Instead, you will lose your voice, your gloves and possibly your sense of direction. Come back to reality before you put the cautionary tale in tailgate.

Contact KIVA BANK at kiva.bank@yale.edu.