T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · VOL. CXLIX, NO. 4 · yaledailynews.com · @yaledailynews
Yale legal spending rose by 46 percent BY LEO NYBERG STAFF REPORTER Yale spent $26.2 million on outside legal fees — a 46 percent increase from the previous period — in the fiscal year ending June 2025, which includes the first five months of the second Trump administration. The approximate $8.3 million jump from the $17.9 million spent in fiscal year 2024 is the largest increase on record for Yale, according to publicly available tax filings dating back to 2001 — though the University’s spending on legal fees has trended upward over the last five years. The $26.2 million figure corresponds to the period from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, the most recent one with public disclosures available, and comes from Form 990 disclosures filed in May 2026. In the early months of President Donald Trump’s current term,
which began in January 2025, federal agencies launched a slew of investigations into Yale and other top universities. In March 2025, the Department of Education opened an inquiry into Yale stemming from an antisemitism complaint, as well as a separate investigation into the School of Management for ties with a diversity program for doctoral students. In April 2025, the Department of Justice began a yearlong investigation into the Yale School of Medicine for alleged discrimination against white and Asian applicants. The investigation culminated in a May 2026 letter of findings accusing the school of illegal discrimination. The Justice Department’s inquiry has since expanded to Yale College and the Law School, and the University is in talks with the Trump administration to resolve SEE LEGAL PAGE 4
Adriana Petrizzo / Data Editor
2by 0 3 0 the numbers THE CLASS OF
ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS CASTILLO-WEST
SEE PAGE 11
UMich investigated now-Yale VP BY SARA AGRAWAL STAFF REPORTER Geoff Chatas, Yale’s senior vice president for operations, was investigated in 2025 by the University of Michigan, his then-workplace, after “allegations of financial mismanagement,” according to a report earlier this month. An agreement between Patterson Belknap, a New York law firm, and the University of Michigan, where Chatas served as chief financial officer until he resigned in October 2025, revealed that the firm conducted an investigation around “allegations of financial mismanagement,” MLive reported on Sept. 1, citing open records.
The investigation began on July 12, 2025, and invoices between the law firm and the university span at least between September and December 2025, according to the report. Michigan paid the law firm almost $1.3 million to conduct the investigation, The Detroit News also reported on Monday. Chatas resigned from Michigan in October 2025 and joined Yale a month later. As senior vice president of operations and chief financial officer, Chatas “oversees finance, human resources, facilities, hospitality, public safety, information technology, and other administrative funcSEE CHATAS PAGE 4
Yale News
Science Trust report authors laud Yale for listening ‘gut’ rises in course sign-ups BY LEO NYBERG AND ARIA LYNN-SKOV STAFF REPORTERS
Four of the authors behind the April report on declining trust in higher education said they believe the University is taking their recommendations seriously. The Committee on Trust in Higher Education, composed of 10 professors commissioned by University President Maurie McInnis in spring 2025, published a sweeping report this year that asked Yale to take responsibility for the decline in public trust in higher education and proposed wide-ranging changes to its policy. Yale has since refocused its mission statement, re i n s ta te d te s t - m a n d a to ry undergraduate admissions and
BY JOLYNDA WANG STAFF REPORTER Economics courses are once again leading the ranking for the most popular classes this semester, while a “gut” earth science course climbed up the leaderboard, following the end of this fall’s add/ drop period on Friday. The three most popular courses are “Introductory Microeconomics,” “Game Theory” and “Natural Disasters,” with 518, 458 and 422 students enrolled respectively. “Natural Disasters,” in particular, saw a drastic increase in enrollment from 259 students in fall 2024, when it was last taught, and from 70 students in fall 2022. “I am surprised by the level of enrollment this year, but it’s certainly a happy surprise!” earth and planetary sciences professor Maureen Long, who teaches “Natural Disasters,” wrote in SEE COURSES PAGE 4
Ximena Solorzano / Staff Photographer
Zoe Berg / Staff Photographer
SEE TRUST PAGE 5
Trustee election debate transcends politics BY ANAYAH ACCILIEN AND SARA AGRAWAL STAFF REPORTERS The resistance to Yale’s 2021 change to the process of electing alumni to the board of trustees has brought together unlikely bedfellows. Both the Buckley Institute, a self-described conservative organization dedicated to free speech and intellectual diversity, and the Endowment Justice Collective, which has advocated for traditionally left-aligned causes like divestment from fossil fuels and weapons manufacturers, have recently protested the elimination of the petitioning process by which alumni could earn nominations for alumni fellow trustee elections.
Inside The News More than 30 runners completed a 90-mile relay to Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
implemented an orientation program focused on civics — policies which were all addressed by the faculty committee. When its report was released earlier this year, McInnis said she did not have any disagreements with the committee’s recommendations and accepted Yale’s responsibility for flagging public trust. “I think the Yale administration has been taking them very seriously,” history professor and committee co-chair Beverly Gage ’94 said, referring to the report’s recommendations. She said some prompted immediate action — citing the mission statement change that occurred two
PAGE 6 NEWS
Within the past month, Buckley sent a petition to University President Maurie McInnis and other members of the Yale Corporation, while the Endowment Justice Collective helped mobilize students and faculty against what they called anti-democratic practices from the governing body of the University. “It does not require a particular political orientation to recognize that Yale’s own governance structure contradicts its ideals and its commitment to democracy,” Violet Chin ’30, an organizer with the Endowment Justice Collective, wrote in a text message to the News.
Kalina Sabala Montes / Staff Photographer
SEE TRUSTEES PAGE 5
PAGE 2 BULLETIN PAGE 3 OPINION PAGE 8 SCI-TECH PAGE 10 SPORTS PAGE 11 DATA
SHIRLEY Yale’s chapter of Turning Point USA hosted
its first public event with Nick Shirley, a conservative influencer. PAGE 6 NEWS
OCEAN On Thursday, members of the New Haven Climate Movement celebrated the ocean's birthday. PAGE 8 SCI-TECH
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
BULLETIN This Day in Yale History, 1986 September 15, 1986 / SilliMets wins over baseball fans
By Robert Langreth A new student organization, the SilliMets, sees huge interest at the extracurricular bazaar. Devoted to sports fans, the club plans on making “Yale Loves the Mets” shirts and carpooling Yale students down to Shea Stadium for a so-called “Sleep-a-Thon” to get playoff tickets. The first meeting will feature a showing of the Mets’ 25th anniversary videotape.
Struggled? Last week’s solution is here. CORRECTION: The Sept. 11 issue did not attribute the collage on its front page. It was created by Sasha Cabral, a staff illustrator. The issue also misprinted another illustrator’s name on page B3. He is Lucas Castillo-West, not Lucas Castillo.
Behind the Headline By Sarah Rivas I first heard about Yale’s chapter of Turning Point USA’s event featuring political influencer Nick Shirley from my friend who is on the mailing list for the David Network, a conservative organization. On a crisp September night, I walked to Sheffield-SterlingStrathcona Hall, where I chatted outside in line with fellow students and fans of Shirley who had gathered to hear him speak. The security check and nearby police officers added gravity to the chapter’s first public event. Sourcing was difficult for this article because the event was off the record, and several students in the audience whom I asked to interview did not want to speak on the record either. Fortunately, I was able to interview students from Yale College Republicans, whom I had talked to the previous night at the organization’s first meeting. During the event, Shirley spoke to students about how social media is shaping the political landscape.
Read “First campus Turning Point USA event nods to Charlie Kirk’s legacy” on page 6. ILLUSTRATION BY JESSAI FLORES
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
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OPINION GUEST COLUMNIST
S TA F F C O L U M N I S T
RICHIE GEORGE
HANNAH OWENS PIERRE
Say hello to everyone
Against politics as entertainment
Invariably when I walk down the streets of New Haven, either to attend class or to meet friends or to travel to one event or another, I encounter someone I know and I say or yell, “Hello!” Usually they wave back with an equally earnest greeting, and in the rarest of times, with the closest of friends, a greeting becomes an hour-long diversion: a welcome interruption of my day. But sometimes, a greeting is followed by nothing more than a glare or a blink of an eye. Neither an exclamation nor an upturn of surprise, like two strangers walking down an imperturbable street. Bereft of intimacy, I am left with questions and no answers. “Do they hate me?” “Did they not see me?” “What did I do?” But there is no belated recognition. I am already at the end of the street, on my way to something, somewhere. The last question I often consider is simple and devastating: “Why not? Why not say hello?” Many students at Yale have intimated to me that they have regularly had missed encounters of this kind. And each has their own explanation. “We aren’t in the South.” “All of them are usually white people.” “Maybe, they are just weird, I don’t know.” The phenomenon of silent shunning at Yale is so regular that we cannot attribute its origin to a small yet socially active cohort of white wealthy weirdos from the cold American North. Almost all of us are doing “it” to each other, and we’d like to say we aren’t, that we are not playing a game that demands a careful play of meanness and niceness. For students who sincerely commit, almost religiously, to an ethic of absolute hospitality, they are out of luck. Maybe they are the true exception. There is an economy of friendliness at Yale, and we’d like to omit it from our account books. We’d like to believe we do not calculate the commitments we make to acquaintances, friends and partners, with the unearned belief that our notion of reciprocity is not reducible to whether our credits and debts net to more than zero. We refinance our relationships every day, avowing and in the same breath disavowing the possibility of ever having coffee or grabbing a meal with a hoped-for friend. At least we can speculate a future encounter that projects upon an absent attachment. Maybe the prohibition on greeting others, that inaudible, gestural “no,” is an ascetic practice, out of an aversion of risking long-term investments in another’s life or being thrown into an undesirable situation that deranges one’s plan for the future. Maybe I read too diligently
into the quotidian and ordinary. But I believe any serious attempt at attachment formation, to any degree, whether with a friend you see once in a blue moon or a friend whose common room you sleep in every other day, entails a spiritual commitment to a future with them, in their highs and their lows.
THERE IS AN ECONOMY OF FRIENDLINESS AT YALE, AND WE’D LIKE TO OMIT IT FROM OUR ACCOUNT BOOKS. Otherwise, all of our relationships become entirely optional. When a friend falters, they become toxic, as if a worthless asset, instead of a person in dire need of care. A relationship becomes a so-called liability if the option of having the relationship no longer adds value to your life, whatever that proverbial value is. The rhetoric of optionality has traveled from the mouths of trustees to those of their assets — by which I mean us, their students. If our generation consents to our college years wholly becoming a financial asset, from the very fact of our attendance to the micro-social dynamics of friendships and partnerships at Yale, then we’d be better off honestly admitting to each other that our hospitality is conditional. But if our lives mean more to us than the economic value our relationships may or may not bring, we must take the leap to foster relationships founded on unconditional hospitality for others, at Yale and in New Haven broadly. I do not expect a din of greetings to be heard on Yale’s streets and hallways tomorrow, nor that Yale administration will add an extra five minutes to the passing period between classes for mandatory greeting sessions. But I do expect that we, as students and as friends, choose to hold each other’s lives in our hands, to say that no one is a stranger here. If we plan to fight for a democratic university that interrupts the sordid age of financialization, which I hope we do as soon as possible, let’s craft a we that remakes Yale for the long term. Saying hello would be a fine way to start. RICHIE GEORGE is a senior studying history, an organizer and the editorin-chief of BRINK: A Review of Books. They can be reached at richie.george@yale.edu.
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One year ago, Charlie Kirk’s murder was broadcast to the world. Millions watched a man lose his life, a wife become a widow and children lose their father, all for the crime of holding Republican political beliefs. This moment should have been a time of national mourning. It was a time to confront our own mortality and reassess the foolishness of allowing our political beliefs to inspire hatred of others. Yet none of this happened. Instead, almost immediately after, people around the world, including Yale students on Fizz, the popular social media application which only Yale students can post on, flooded t h e i n te r n e t w i t h m e m e s mocking Kirk’s death, which pervade the internet to this day. AI-generated songs, pictures and videos were shared by millions, making light of his life and its tragic ending. Unfortunately, this behavior is not an isolated incident. Similar reactions occurred after healthcare executive Brian Thompson’s murder at the hands of Luigi Mangione. Nor is it seen exclusively on the left: online conservative figures showed a lack of sympathy when former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi was attacked in 2022. And farright figures like Nick Fuentes have famously hidden their true beliefs behind irony and humor to appeal to a wider audience. Rather, it is representative of a new approach to politics, one of farcical entertainment ra t h e r t h a n s u b s t a n t i ve discourse involving real human beings. Politics is now treated as entertainment. Instead of dealing with real, difficult political questions, people increasingly scorn seriousness, o p t i n g i n s tea d fo r s h o c k
value and parody. Political c o n s c i o u s n e s s i s fo r m e d through short clips and ironic humor. Complex arguments are compressed into viral moments, and political opponents are treated as characters to ridicule, rather than people whose ideas are worth understanding. It is a trend that has afflicted even a great institution like Yale. While the University prides itself on intellectual rigor, its students often treat matters of life and death as mere spectacle. I witnessed this first hand last year, when I debated the leftwing livestreamer Destiny on his statements calling for the death of conservatives. An audience of Yale students laughed and cheered as a guest on our campus mocked the murder of a father and husband. Eve n re ce n t ly, a t Ya l e Political Union debates — where intellectual dialogue should be expected to flourish — students frequently laugh at their opponents rather than engage in serious debate. Those who express unorthodox opinions are often mocked on social media instead of engaged with, as was on display at a debate with Hasan Piker, a left-wing political commentator, last spring. I see several things wrong as this insipid approach to politics creeps into our culture. For one, it makes us worse people from a normative perspective. T h e re s h o u l d b e n o t h i n g amusing about the murder of a young father or the attack on an elderly man. To treat these topics as light-hearted jokes degrades our shared humanity and capacity for empathy. We treat our fellow human beings worse when we view them as nothing more than objects of our amusement. E q u a l ly i m p o r ta n t ly, i t worsens intellectual discourse.
When everything is treated as ridiculous, there is no space for honesty. Difficult conversations are cast aside in favor of levity. Debate, which is necessary for intellectual discovery, is impossible with an audience primed for clicks. Finally, it reinforces political polarization in a troubling way. When culture becomes defined by poking fun at tragedies affecting the other side of the political aisle, people of differing political backgrounds find it impossible to relate to one another. I do not wish to overstate my claim: There is nothing inherently wrong with humor, even dark humor. Finding topics of death or devastation amusing in the abstract is not harmful, and may in fact help people cope with the weight of these concepts. But is something else entirely to turn politics itself into mere entertainment, where even human death becomes mere content to be consumed and shared. Politics does not have to be humorless, but it must be serious enough to recognize that the people behind d i sa g re e m e n ts a re h u m a n beings. Imagine your mother, your sibling, your friend under the brutal assault of an internet mocking campaign on the basis of their worldview. It’s unbecoming. At Yale, of all places, we should demand more. A week after the anniversary of Kirk’s death, commit to politics for the sake of truth, not entertainment. HANNAH OWENS PIERRE is a junior studying Ethics, Politics, and Economics and Psychology. Her column examines Yale policies and broader politics. She can be reached at hannah. owenspierre@yale.edu.
GUEST COLUMNIST ZAC H A RY S U R I
Political diversity is not the problem I have a confession to make. I have never lived more than a few blocks away from a college campus. As the child of a historian and an economist, I knew the word “tenure” before I learned to read. And my scariest Halloween costume was, by far, a surprisingly lifelike Henry Kissinger. B u t d e s p i te t h e m a n y privileges of an upbringing i n t h e h a l l s o f A m e r i ca n academia, the faculty brat lifestyle has its downsides to o. C u e t h e h a l f- d o z e n detours to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in sunny West Branch, Iowa. The long lectures on the development of American agriculture I had to endure before I could take a slice of pizza. And the everconstant refrain from every non-parental unit, from the father of my first girlfriend to the cantor at a Berlin synagogue: what happened to political diversity on campus? When I arrived at Yale as a credulous first-year three years ago, it was more of the same. Nearly every party of the Yale Political Union claimed to be the only bastion of an u n d e r re p re se n te d p o l i t i ca l minority on campus. My fellow D i re c te d S t u d i e s s t u d e n ts lamented that no one else was reading The Iliad anymore. And my FOCUS friends insisted that Yale had destroyed New Haven with its academic imperialism. In short: The leftists say they are oppressed. And the conservatives claim they are castrated. As with most things, the truth is they are both wrong. Yale, in fact, has one of the most robust conservative student communities in the country. Yo u c a n a t te n d s p e e c h e s i n favo r o f I m m i g ra t i o n s
a n d C u s to m s E n fo rce m e n t deportation at the Buckley Inst itute, suppo rt pro -life causes at St. Thomas More or advocate for the engineering of the Übermensch — true story — on the floor of the Party of the Right. And if you so desire, the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration department would be happy to offer you a course on “Latine Queer Trans Studies.” Though the vast majority of Yale faculty never voted fo r D o n a l d T r u m p , t h a t h a rd ly m a ke s t h e m l e f t i s t revolutionaries by any measure. They are still teaching Lincoln and Homer and Biblical Hebrew. The problem is not that the conservatives — or the leftists for that matter — don’t exist. The problem is where they exist. Yale has become too siloed. The ER&M department is filled with historians, economists and political scientists who all share a particular ideology. The faculty of Ethics, Politics, and Economics have similar credentials to those in ER&M, but in large part, opposite politics. T h e c rea t i o n o f my r i a d d e p a r t m e n ts i n t h e p a s t quarter century means a leftwing student can now graduate from Yale with an ER&M degree and never take a class with a professor — let alone a student — who is not a leftist. Similarly, an EP&E major might never encounter a professor who is skeptical of capital markets. The problem is not that Yale offers a course on “Patristics” or “Queer Poetry of the 1990s” in the first place. Those courses should be taught! The problem is the courses that are not being taught instead. Yale needs to teach survey courses again. The nation’s
most famed history department does not regularly offer an A m e r i c a n h i s to r y s u r ve y course. Nor does it offer a regular German history or British history survey course. If every historian regularly had to teach for breadth instead of depth, macrohistory instead of microhistory, students would have to encounter professors of widely differing viewpoints before graduation.
THE LEFTISTS SAY THEY ARE OPPRESSED. AND THE CONSERVATIVES CLAIM THEY ARE CASTRATED. The strength of the American university has always been in breadth. Unlike our counterparts in Heidelberg, we don’t hide away for indefinite terms of study to learn every ounce of Etruscan grammar and forget to read Tolstoy. We shouldn’t let our professors do the same, whether it’s Queer Poetry in ER&M or Adam Smith in EP&E. The day a Marxist is teaching Burke to the finance bros, and a Burkian is teaching Marx to the woke crowd is the day I rest content. ZACHARY SURI is a senior in Morse College studying English and History, originally from Madison, Wisc. and Austin, Tex. He is a former City Editor. He can be reached at zachary.suri@yale.edu.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com · @yaledailynews
FROM THE FRONT
“I think I’m looking for the last step, right?” ALEXANDER ZVEREV GERMAN TENNIS PLAYER
Legal expenses increased alongside lobbying spending LEGAL FROM PAGE 1 the investigations, according to a July message from Yale President Maurie McInnis. Yale hired McGuireWoods — the law firm that handled a federal inquiry into the University of Virginia — to manage its ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration. On the website of Yale’s Office of the General Counsel, which oversees legal matters affecting Yale, a frequently asked questions page says the general counsel may retain outside legal help on behalf of the University “to handle a matter requiring particular expertise, to manage a large litigation matter, or in the event of a conflict with another matter.” The disclosure for fiscal year ending in June 2025 does not detail how Yale spent the $26.2 million, except that it was used toward legal fees for non-employees. This means the figure does not include salaries and other expenses at the Office of the General Counsel. Un ive rs i ty S p o ke s p e rso n Karen Peart did not answer questions on the nature of Yale’s legal spending. Yale’s lobbying spending has also skyrocketed during the second Trump administration. After Trump’s 2024 election victory, McInnis began a lobbying push to address declining trust in universities and oppose policies that could cut Yale’s funding. Many of Yale’s peers have also hiked up lobbying and legal expenditures over the past year. While Yale has outpaced most
Adriana Petrizzo / Data Editor The University spent over $26 million on outside legal bills from July 2024 to June 2025, a period marked by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the initiation of investigations into Yale and other elite universities. of the Ivy League in lobbying spending since Trump returned to power, institutions that have faced more direct threats from the administration have vastly outspent Yale on outside legal
counsel. Harvard and Columbia — who faced frequent targeted pressure from Trump — spent $126 million and $93.6 million on outside counsel in the most recent fiscal
Economics still tops enrollment
year, respectively. In that period, Harvard increased its legal spending by 58 percent, Princeton more than doubled its legal bills and Columbia increased legal expen-
“Introductory Microeconomics” continues to hold the top spot of course enrollment this fall, while “Natural Disasters” picked up more than 100 students since it was last taught.
COURSES FROM PAGE 1 an email to the News. “I’d love for every Yale student to know a little something about how the Earth system works, given its importance to many of the biggest problems that we are facing in today’s world.” “Introductory M icroeconomics” continued to hold the top spot among Yale’s most-enrolled courses this semester. “The course is a prerequisite for a lot of things, and it satisfies distributional requirements, so many students are there because it is a course they need to take,” economics professor Cormac O’Dea, who teaches the course, wrote in an email to the News. “But I hope that they get more than a box ticked.” Teaching economic ideas to a large group of students, many of whom are new to the subject, sharpens his own thinking and serves as “good practice for writing papers and policy work,” O’Dea added. Last fall, “Game Theory” enrollment dropped to 375 students, resulting in a third-place ranking, but its enrollment has since risen back to make it the second most popular course this semester. Economics professor Benjamin Polak, who teaches the course, attributed
the rebound in numbers to the discontinuation of the course’s spring version this school year. “The main thing I have learnt is it’s a privilege to get to teach Yale students,” Polak wrote in an email to the News. “They go on afterwards, perhaps even using some stuff from the class, and make the world a better place. It’s a good feeling to be even a small part of that.” “Introduction to Psychology” replaced “Intermediate Microeconomics” for fourth place, with 348 enrolled. Former Yale President Peter Salovey returned to teaching the introductory psychology course this semester for the first time in 23 years, and after the first lecture, several students told the News that they were taking the course because of Salovey. “My style is not overly formal, and I think even in a large class that encourages conversation about the material,” Salovey wrote to the News regarding his teaching approach. “The students seem engaged and are asking interesting questions in class. For me personally, it’s enjoyable and gratifying (and an honor) to be back in the classroom.” Kayla Bethea ’28 wrote to the News that she enrolled in “Natural Disasters” to fulfill her sci-
ence credit requirement and learn more about climate sciences. Erica Yu ’28, who is currently enrolled in “Natural Disasters” and is an earth and planetary science major, wrote that the course’s broader appeal as a “gut ” — a term popular among Yale students for an easy course, in this case for a science distributional requirement — has made it more difficult for students in the major to engage with the material in greater depth. Chemistry professor Paul Cooper, who teaches “General Chemistry I,” the ninth-most popular course this semester, noted that his course’s large enrollment is likely not due to pure student interest. “Realistically though, it’s most likely because students are required to take the course as a degree requirement,” he wrote in an email to the News. “But why do so many STEM majors require chemistry? Well of course it’s because it’s really important to know the fundamental nature of the world around us!” A d d /d ro p p e r i o d l a s t s approximately two weeks every semester. Contact JOLYNDA WANG at jolynda.wang@yale.edu.
Contact LEO NYBERG at leo.nyberg@yale.edu.
Chatas probed for alleged financial fault CHATAS FROM PAGE 1
Adriana Petrizzo / Data Editor
ditures by 46 percent — approximately the same rate as Yale.
tions that support the university’s academic mission,” according to Yale’s website. “We do not speculate about or discuss another institution’s personnel matters,” Yale spokesperson Karen Peart wrote in a Monday email to the News. “Mr. Chatas came to Yale, after a thorough search process, because of his demonstrated experience and commitment to strong financial stewardship and operational excellence.” Chatas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Paul Corliss, a Michigan spokesperson, denied a request for comment, writing in an email to the News that “we do not comment on personnel matters such as this.” The investigation into Chatas’ conduct was conducted privately, and Michigan released no findings from the investigation, according to The Detroit News. During the Oct. 16 meeting of UMich’s board of regents — the governing body of the university — UMich’s President Domenico Grasso praised Chatas’ work and congratulated the administrator on his upcoming position at Yale. “Yale is fortunate to have him join their leadership team, and we will miss him in Ann Arbor,” Grasso said at the meeting. Before joining Michigan, Cha-
tas worked as senior vice president for business and finance and chief financial officer at Ohio State University from 2010 to 2018, and as senior vice president and chief operating officer at Georgetown University from 2018 to 2021. Before his career as a university administrator, Chatas was a finance executive in energy and finance firms including Citibank, according to Yale’s webpage announcing Chatas’ arrival. Chatas arrived at Yale amid unprecedented budget cuts — including a number of staff layoffs — due to the passage of a tax hike on Yale’s endowment returns that administrators estimated would cost the University $300 million annually. The tax, which was part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, took effect in July 2026. Chatas’ salary is not disclosed in Yale’s published tax filings — the most recent of which are from the 2025 fiscal year, which ended before Chatas joined Yale. In September 2025, Chatas’ salary at UMich was increased to $886,954, according to The Detroit News. The law firm Patterson Belknap dedicates a practice to representing tax-exempt entities, including universities, according to its website. Contact SARA AGRAWAL at sara.agrawal@yale.edu.
Abby Assouad / Staff Photographer
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com · @yaledailynews
FROM THE FRONT
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“I’m never going to be the guy who is able to robotically go about my business and not change my expression or show any emotion.” BEN SHELTON AMERICAN TENNIS PLAYER
Backlash to trustee election change spans political aisle should give its broader community a greater role in governance and make trustee proceedings more transparent and accessible. Among other demands, the organization also demanded an end to Yale’s settlement negotiations with the Department of Justice so the University can fully defend admissions policies at Yale College, Yale Law School and the Yale School of Medicine, which the Justice Department has investigated. Isabel Matos ’28, a speaker at the teach-in on behalf of the EJC, expressed frustration with the Corporation’s “refusal” to listen to the 2023 referendum, saying that “this silence and secrecy is no accident.” The trustee system is designed to be an “insulation” from the broader Yale community, Matos told the crowd.
Martin Peralta / Head Photography Editor
Five years after the Yale Corporation eliminated the petitioning process for nominating alumni fellow candidates, the Buckley Institute and the Endowment Justice Collective are still advocating for a more democratic process. TRUSTEES FROM PAGE 1 C o r p o ra t i o n election changes According to the University by-laws, the Yale Corporation must include 10 successor trustees, six alumni fellows, as well as the University president and the governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut. Successor trustees are chosen by current board members, while alumni fellows are elected by the alumni body. In May 2021, Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85, a former senior trustee announced in a message to alumni a change in the election process of alumni fellows. “The Board of Trustees has determined that the petition process to become a candidate in the Alumni Fellow election no longer serves the best interests of the university,” she wrote. Prior to that announcement, hopeful candidates who collected 3 percent of eligible alumni signatures would qualify
for a nomination. Additionally, the Yale Alumni Association’s nominating committee could select alumni for the ballot. After Bond Hill’s announcement, candidates could only reach the ballot through the Alumni Association’s nominating committee. Bond Hill emphasized that, as fiduciaries of the University, trustees “must represent the interests of the university above their own or those o f a ny ba c ke rs.” S h e c i te d “cause-based elections” as a reason for the change to the election process. After that announcement, alumni reacted with ire, the News reported at the time. Donald Glascoff Jr. ’67 and Victor Ashe ’67, who reached the 2021 ballot through petitioning, sued Yale for violating an amendment to the University charter. The lawsuit failed to reach the Connecticut Supreme Court in March after losses at the district and appellate levels.
The Endowment Justice Collective slams ‘insulation’ The Yale Endowment Justice Collective, a student advocacy group focused on the ethical allocation of University funds, has repeatedly called for a more democratic process in electing members of the Yale Corporation since the 2021 change. I n 2 0 2 3 , t h e g ro u p ca m p a i g n e d fo r a re fe re n d u m o rga n i ze d by t h e Ya l e Co l lege Council that called for t h e d e m o c ra t i za t i o n o f t h e Co rp ora tio n’s e lec tio n proc e s s a n d ex p a n d e d vo t i n g r i g h ts fo r s t u d e n ts, fa c u l ty and staff. That campaign has since evolved into “Democratize Yale,” a coalition of students, staff, faculty and Yale alumni, which hosted its first teach-in on Sept. 1 involving over 300 Yale community members. According to its website, the coalition is demanding for changes to how Yale’s Board of Trustees is selected and operated, arguing that the University
The Buckley Institute criticizes ‘handpicked’ process On April 24, the Buckley Institute released a petition calling on Yale to restore the petitioning process for prospective alumni fellows. Buckley describes itself on its website as “the only organization dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity and free speech at Yale” and as “a home for enlightened conservative thought.” The petition, addressed to McInnis and the board of trustees, lists three demands: to restore the petitioning process for prospective alumni fellow candidates, to allow candidates “to explain and discuss their approach to Yale governance” and to release the vote counts of alumni fellow elections. Yale’s information page on alumni fellow elections calls it “a long-standing practice” that candidates do not campaign but, rather, “stand for election solely based on the information included in the official election materials.” “You have made restoring public trust in higher education an important priority for the university,” Buckley’s petition reads, referring to the April report from the Committee on Trust in Higher Education. “But how can Yale expect to earn back the trust of the public if it does not even seem to trust its own alumni?” On Aug. 26, Buckley sent its petition to McInnis and the
other members of the Yale Corporation with over 1,100 signatures from alumni, students and faculty, according to its website. Buckley Institute Founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble ’11 said through a spokesperson in an emailed statement to the News that without the petition candidate process and letting candidates discuss their views, “what is left is only the illusion of an election, one in which candidates are handpicked and alumni voters do not know why they are casting a ballot.” Mór Szepesi ’27, a social director for the Buckley Program and former president of the Yale Political Union, said in a phone interview that a petitioning process ensured that people with less represented perspectives could attempt to be elected. “The general principle of many of the organizations dedicated to free speech is that we need transparency and we need various opinions highlighted,” Szepesi said. He added that when processes are changed in a way that seems to diminish transparency, “especially in this case, when it comes to selecting people in positions of power,” it might seem that the University is cherrypicking people with particular perspectives to be trustees. Szepesi said that he acknowledged that “certain people” might understand the University and its priorities better than others. “And sometimes Yale students aren’t the ones who should be voting on everything,” he said. Chin, the EJC organizer, wrote to the News that the alumni petition process, paired alongside democratic elections, would incentivize engagement in open dialogue between future trustees and the broader Yale community “rather than lock decision-making behind closed doors.” The Buckley petition noted that the elimination of the petitioning process for alumni fellow elections “garnered criticism from across the political spectrum.” Contact ANAYAH ACCILIEN at anayah.accilien@yale.edu and SARA AGRAWAL at sara.agrawal@yale.edu.
Mission statement, test policy, orientation see changes TRUST FROM PAGE 1 weeks after the report’s release — while others inspired “restatements of principles” and many were “going to just take awhile to implement.” In altering its mission statement, the University axed language about making the world a better place, diversity and educating “aspiring leaders worldwide.” The new statement, which matches nearly verbatim the one suggested in the committee report, says Yale’s role is to create, disseminate and preserve knowledge. The report framed the suggested change as the basis of the rest of its recommendations, though McInnis told the News in May that the mission statement did not undergo a change. “There’s an emphasis that was always there, but is now more explicit, that this is an educational institution above all,” English professor and report co-author David Bromwich ’73 GRD ’77 said. McInnis framed the statement change as a reaffirmation of a “core mission” that has been in the faculty handbook for decades. She also pointed to individual schools’ mission statements, some of which still emphasize ideas from the pretrust report mission statement. “The mission statement is a largely symbolic issue,” Gage said. “But symbols really matter and statements of purpose really matter.” Some of the committee’s other recommendations have been partially adopted, and others
have been referred by McInnis to separate committees. She has not explicitly outlined steps to address the committee’s calls to “Build trust with the trustees.” Earlier this month, first years were required to attend an orientation event regarding the University’s role in democracy, hosted by Gage and Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis. Gage said the sessions marked the beginning of implementing the committee’s recommendation to mandate civic education “that would reach every first-year undergraduate student on a regular basis.” Gage said the mandatory sessions were a good start and that she wanted to expand the program. The trust committee also recommended in its report that Yale reform undergraduate admissions and financial aid, describing both processes as opaque and breeding distrust in the University. The report called on Yale admissions to publicly adopt a minimum standard of academic achievement for prospective applicants. McInnis referred the committee’s recommendations to the Presidential Council on Yale College Admissions, which in May reinstated the requirements for undergraduate applicants to submit either the SAT or ACT. Gage said she would still like to see a minimum score posted publicly. “That is both for the purposes of legibility, purposes of messaging about what really matters the most to the institution,” Gage said. “And it’s also to save a
lot of people who are spending a lot of time on these complicated applications the time and energy and emotional investment of an application that probably isn’t going to succeed.” Bromwich said the material advertising Yale admissions had “underemphasized just how competitive it is.” Like the one focused on testing in admissions, many of the trust committee’s recommendations have ended up in committees of their own. McInnis asked Secretary and Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86 to form a committee to tackle social media guidelines and tasked the Committee on Teaching, Learning and Advising with addressing grade inflation. Committee co-chair Julia Adams wrote in Inquisitive Magazine earlier this month that some of the report’s “thornier recommendations are bound to raise major challenges,” particularly the recommendation to “open minds.” The committee suggested Yale undertake initiatives to enhance “open and critical debate on campus” that are “anchored in the university’s fundamental academic mission” and that Yale commit resources to parts of the University “who lead demonstrably open processes of intellectual renewal,” suggesting a range of processes including “institutional models not yet tried.” “This is complicated terrain, because we can agree — and we did agree — that as we said, free teaching and scholarship
requires contestation, and we also agreed that it can be difficult to foster that,” Adams said in a Thursday interview. “And it isn’t wholly clear which strategy might work best at Yale.” This recommendation may require experimentation, she said. What comes next? Some of the authors who spoke to the News said they hope Yale tackles the report’s recommendations that concern the classroom. In its report, the committee called for a blanket no-device policy in classes, grading reform and increased rigor in academics. Currently, professors are able to establish their own policy on device usage in class. Gage acknowledged that not all the specifics of their proposals are likely to become official University policy. S h e sa i d s h e wo u l d b e “ s u r p r i se d ” i f Ya l e a d o p te d the 3.0 mean GPA the Comm i t te e re c o m m e n d e d , s ay i n g t h a t t h i s p o l i cy wo u l d mark “a pretty radical shift.” B ro mw i c h a l so sa i d h e d o e s n o t ex p e c t a ny s h o r t - te r m a c t i o n o n g ra d e i n f l a t i o n from the University. Sarath Sanga LAW ’14, a law professor and trust committee member, said that “no one really defends the status quo” for grading norms but “there remains significant disagreement as to how to proceed.” He said that “what’s stunting anything from proceeding” is the need for “a critical mass of universities to move together.” “If one person moves, and
nobody updates, this is the problem,” he said. “We’re just penalizing our own students.” That demand, according to Sanga, is an “impossible ask” but critical for finding a solution to the issue of grade inflation. Adams, a sociology professor, said she is currently implementing a no-tech policy in her classes this fall, which she said has taken some adjustment but is “going wonderfully.” Bromwich said he has banned devices in his classrooms for years. In a May interview, McInnis told the News that she did not know when to expect news on admissions policy. “I suspect, since it took quite a while for public trust in higher education to fall, it will take quite a while for it to be rebuilt, especially in a politically fraught moment like the one we’re in,” Gage said. The four authors that spoke with the News expressed optimism about the conversations their report sparked. “It seems to have really struck a nerve both on campus and off,” Sanga said. Fo r Ad a m s, t h e re p o r t has already succeeded as it h a s p ro m p te d “ i m p o r ta n t soul-searching at Yale, but also more broadly.” On Wednesday, McInnis will speak at an American Enterprise Institute event titled “Restoring Trust in Higher Education.” Contact LEO NYBERG at leo.nyberg@yale.edu and ARIA LYNN-SKOV at aria.lynn-skov@yale.edu.
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NEWS
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMPER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
“I feel like there’s a lot of power in dreaming and believing.” NAOMI OSAKA JAPANESE TENNIS PLAYER
Yalies run 90-mile relay to Ground Zero on 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 BY HAILEY YOUNG STAFF REPORTER Shortly before 3 a.m. on Friday, eight students gathered for a group stretch in front of Yale’s World War I memorial as they prepared for their leg of a 90-mile relay to Ground Zero. The Yale 9/11 Memorial Relay, organized by Gabe Sachs ’28 and Duncan Kilbride ’28, took place on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and brought together 32 runners stationed t h ro u g h o u t Connecticut, We s tc h e s te r Co u n ty a n d Manhattan before reaching the site of the Twin Towers. The roughly 16-hour relay also set out to raise funds for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, exceeding its original goal of $5,000 with $7,425 amassed as of Sunday. “We’re the generation born in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,” Sachs said in a phone interview. “To a certain extent, as we come of age, the baton is passed to us now to try to carry the memory of those who have died forward and to remember them.” At Friday’s relay journey, an American flag served as the baton, moving continuously from each leg of runners throughout the journey. A Yale banner with the names of the nine Yale alumni killed in the attacks was also carried alongside each group of participants. “We added the banner to make it a little bit more personal to Yale and to really get that connection to the student body and to the wider Yale community,” Kilbride said in a phone interview. “We wanted to make it a unique Yale event instead of just a conventional, traditional relay race.” The idea for the relay emerged first in early August, Sachs said, when the two students began thinking about how students could mark the 25th anniversary. As co-presidents of the
Yale Ultramarathon Student O rga n i z a t i o n , S a c h s a n d Kilbride devised an initial idea of running the entire distance of New Haven to New York, Sachs said. But instead, they decided to divide the route into nine legs of roughly 10 miles each to allow more members of the Yale community to participate in a “collective act of remembrance,” Sachs said. Before the run started, Sachs and Kilbride recruited volunteers, onboarded participants and mapped the route to ensure its safety and feasibility, Sachs said. On Friday, many volunteers ran
more than one leg, with one even running 40 of the 90 miles, the organizers said. As the runners got closer to New York, Kilbride recalled, strangers along the route began to notice and cheer them on, with many donating on the spot to their cause. Once the runners reached the World Trade Center, a woman approached the group as they took a photograph with their flags, asking to look at the names, Kilbride said. She recognized Stacey Sanders ’98 and told the runners that her best friend had previously been close with Sanders in school.
“That kind of solidified and put into focus why we were doing this,” Sachs said. “These aren’t just names — they’re people, they’re friends, they’re colleagues, they’re classmates. Obviously, they’ve passed away, but I don’t think they really die unless you stop remembering them. It’s important to keep remembering, saying their names, and remembering that they’re people who others miss.” Sachs and Kilbride are members of Yale’s Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which they said shaped their understanding of the anniversary and reflections on those who came before them in
serving the nation. Kilbride also said the relay reminded him that young Americans should take on events that can “do a lot of good in the world” no matter how ambitious they seem at first, recalling how organizing a 90-mile relay seemed like a “gargantuan task” at first. The National September 11 Museum and Memorial, to which the relay’s funds will be donated, opened on the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Contact HAILEY YOUNG at hailey.young@yale.edu.
COURTESY OF GABE SACHS
More than 30 runners completed a 90-mile relay from Beinecke Plaza to the site of the Twin Towers on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, raising over $7,000 for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
First campus Turning Point USA event nods to Charlie Kirk’s legacy BY SARAH RIVAS STAFF REPORTER Yale’s chapter of Turning Point USA invited Nick Shirley, an independent journalist and conservative influencer, on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by Kirk and his mentor, Bill Montgomery, to advocate for conservative principles on high school and college campuses across the United States. Kirk was killed in a shooting last September at a
speaking event at a university in Utah, and Turning Point USA’s Yale chapter was founded this spring. During the off-the-record event, Shirley detailed his investigations into fraud and emphasized the importance of independent journalism, which he predicted would become increasingly popular in the future, according to audience members. Carlos Perez ’29, the president of Yale’s TPUSA chapter, wrote in a text message to the News that he thought “there would be no better date to have our first event
than on the one year anniversary of the tragedy that inspired us to start this group.” N i c k S h i r l e y ro s e to prominence in December 2025 when he posted a viral video exposing alleged widespread fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota and in March 2026 at registered hospices in California. “I think Charlie was someone who stood for truth, and he wasn’t afraid to back down,” Shirley said in an interview. “He never backed down from evil, and he was eventually killed by evil for speaking out.”
Perez wrote that he believed Shirley would inspire students as a young American who has used his freedom of speech for the “betterment of the country.” Ethan Savage ’30 said in an interview that he was drawn to the event because he admires how Shirley represents “a voice of the American public,” reporting outside the influence of major media outlets. “He’s just doing this for the love of the game, and I think the transparency is something very needed in America today,” Savage said. Shirley told the News he hoped to encourage students to
SARAH RIVAS / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
On the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Yale’s chapter of Turning Point USA hosted its first public event with conservative influencer Nick Shirley.
be voices within their campus for “good and truth more than anything.” Laina Allen ’29, the vice president of Yale College Republicans, said in an interview that Shirley’s message of “pursuing what is true” is valuable for all college students, regardless of their position on the political spectrum. Turning Point USA has over 800 college chapters, according to its website. Contact SARAH RIVAS at sarah.rivas@yale.edu.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
NEWS
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“I didn’t do anything bad.” DANIIL MEDVEDEV RUSSIAN TENNIS PLAYER
Toad’s Place patron arrested after alleged attempt to stab bouncer BY EVELYN RONAN STAFF REPORTER A 19-year-old resident of Madison, Conn., was arrested in a Broadway parking lot early Sunday morning after allegedly attempting to stab a Toad’s Place security guard. Ethan Finn was charged with second- and third-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace. The security guard sustained a laceration to his hand, according to New Haven Police Department spokesperson Christian Bruckhart. At approximately 12:38 a.m. on Sunday, NHPD officers were dispatched to Toad’s upon receiving reports of an assault, Bruckhart wrote in an email to the News. As security guards attempted to remove Finn from
the club, he allegedly punched one of the guards and then attempted to stab another with a knife, according to Bruckhart. Bruckhart wrote that the assault could have been related to a fight that happened inside that night. A video posted online shows three young men assaulting another man on the floor, although Finn does not appear to participate in the fight. Finn allegedly fled Toad’s on foot towards Whalley Avenue and was arrested in a Broadway parking lot across from the Apple Store, where he was taken into custody by officers, according to NHPD dispatches. Finn’s bond was set at $25,000. Contact EVELYN RONAN at evelyn.ronan@yale.edu
ERIC WANG / PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Officers arrested a man in a Broadway parking lot early Sunday morning after he allegedly attempted to stab a security guard at Toad’s Place, according to a New Haven Police Department spokesperson.
Wilbur Cross junior is newest school board student representative BY JINGCHU SOPHIA ZHANG STAFF REPORTER N e w H a ve n h i g h s c h o o l student Dani McT iernan Huge h a s a wea l t h o f ex p e r i e n ce p e r fo r m i n g o n s ta ge — b u t t h i s s c h o o l y e a r, s h e i s stepping into a different kind of spotlight. O n Mo n d ay, McT i e r n a n Huge, a junior at Wilbur Cross High School, began her term as a student representative on the New Haven Public Schools Board of Education. In late May, McTiernan Huge won a four-way race for the seat. Along with Hill Regional Career H igh School senior Abdellah Aly, she will attend biweekly board meetings as a non-voting participant to advocate for student interests. “I would describe Dani as a very gentle force,” Ashley S to c k to n , a k i n d e rga r te n teacher and a longtime friend of McT iernan Huge’s family, said in a phone interview. “She’s a force, but she’s a really astute listener. She asks a lot of really good questions.” H e r tea c h e rs a n d fa m i ly members called the junior’s n ew ro l e o n t h e B o a rd o f E d u c a t i o n a b i g s te p. B u t t h ey sa i d t h ey b e l i eve d h e r re s e r ve d ye t re s o l u te p e rs o n a l i ty a n d a b i l i ty to connect with others equip her well for the challenge. Finding her voice Since the beginning of last school year, McTiernan Huge has served on Wilbur Cross’ student council, where, she said, “the stakes are not very high.” When a spot opened up for student representative, McT i e r n a n H u ge re ca l l e d ,
social studies teacher and student council advisor Brian G r i n d ro d e n c o u ra ge d h i s students to run. “A n d then no one volunteered,” McTiernan Huge said. “I was like: Okay, someone has to do it, so I will. It will be fine — what’s the worst thing that could happen?” As she campaigned for the role and spoke with students a b o u t wh a t c h a n ge s t h ey wished to see in the school system, McTiernan Huge said she felt a growing sense of responsibility to make change happen. She began actively taking in more student input and launched a website where s t u d e n ts co u l d u pvo te o r downvote her proposals. M cT i e r n a n H u g e a l s o spoke with John Carlos Serana Musser, a past student representative who graduated from Wilbur Cross last year, who advised her to “have big goals.” She decided to focus on school start times, which she said have been a problem in her personal experience. “I wake up at 6 a.m. to get on my bus, and I have friends who wake up at 5 a.m., 5:30 a.m. to get on their buses,” McTiernan Huge said. “They get up so early, and, especially in winter, it’s cold, it’s dark — it’s dark when you’re getting on the bus — the vibes are really down.” As she did more research, McT iernan Huge said, she learned more about how a lack of sleep harms teenage development and learning. Since being elected, she a d d e d , s h e h a s te m p e re d her expectations around the potential for policy change. While she knows that other districts have successfully
altered school start times, she said she is wary of the complex coordination such a move would require. “I think the goal of a later start time is a long term one. It’s not going to happen in my time,” McTiernan Huge said. “I think that’s unrealistic, but it’d be great if I could at least get the board talking about it in a serious way.” A more pressing concern fo r McT i e r n a n H u ge , s h e said, is the state of facilities at schools like her own. A July article in the New Haven I n d e p e n d e n t h a d n o te d sightings of mold at Wilbur Cross and an ongoing need for roof repairs. McTiernan Huge also described problematic bathroom conditions: doors with no locks on them, broken sinks and times when there is no soap or paper towels. District leaders h ave a t t r i b u te d poor school i n f ra s t r u c t u re to l i m i te d finances and inefficient systems for managing repairs. To discuss plans moving forward, McTiernan Huge said she has met with Aly, as well as Brandon Daley, a Metropolitan Business Academy student and lead liaison for the Citywide Student Council, an assembly of student leaders across the district. McTiernan Huge said they discussed involving more students in district decisionm a k i n g a n d p l a n s fo r a n upcoming protest about the state of facilities. The latter is one of many unfamiliar things her new role has called on her to do. “I haven’t done something like this, so we’ll see how it goes,” she said. “I haven’t been so outspoken in such a big group,
JINGCHU SOPHIA ZHANG / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Dani McTiernan Huge began her two-year term as a non-voting student representative on the New Haven Public Schools Board of Education on Monday. On her mind are issues including student sleep deprivation and poor school facility conditions.
JINGCHU SOPHIA ZHANG / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
or with many eyes watching.” On the stage Still, performance has long been an important part of McTiernan Huge’s life, she said, adding that she loved to sing aloud as a child and sang choir with the Trinity Church on the Green. She also started last year at the ACES Educational Center for the Arts Theatre, a half-time magnet arts school, after searching for a way to do more theatre in high school. She called art “a beautiful thing to spend your time doing.” Last May, in the theatre’s o r i g i n a l s t u d e n t - c rea te d production “AUTOMATOWN! T h e M u s i c a l ,” M cT i e r n a n H u ge p l aye d A n n a b e l l e , a sheltered teenager who helps uncover a hidden truth about her small town. Recalling the musical, Stockton said she was most struck by a duet that McTiernan Huge performed. The song, in part, followed Annabelle as she grew skeptical of the town’s peaceful fa ca d e . I n t h e c h a ra c te r ’s transformation, Stockton also saw evidence of McT iernan Huge’s own growth. “That performance, it was different. She’s not just doing the choreography and singing the songs — you could feel a shift in confidence,” Stockton said. “You could hear a pin drop.” “A gentle force” When McTiernan Huge was younger, Stockton remembered her to be “very happy, very thoughtful, very creative, all of these positive things – but not necessarily someone who I thought would put themselves out there.” Over the years, especially throughout McTiernan Huge’s t i m e a t C ro s s , S to c k to n noticed her confidence around others grow. She said McT iernan Huge has the ability to connect with people of all ages and b a c k g ro u n d s . H e r s i s te r, R h ea McT i e r n a n H u ge ’ 27 — who ran for Ward 1 Alder last summer before dropping out of the race — said that ability is rooted in her younger
sister’s relationships with their siblings at home. The sisters’ four younger siblings range in age from one to 11. The Yale senior pointed to her younger sister’s sensitivity to the needs of all her siblings and willingness to speak up for them. “I think these are qualities that are very important for everyone to have, but especially in a role like this where you have to represent a set of people, and you have to be their voice within this space where there’s not a lot of other people who are their direct voice,” Rhea McTiernan Huge said, referring to the student representative role. D a n i M cT i e r n a n H u g e said that her work in theater has also helped inform her approach to leadership. Her experience repeatedly performing in front of an a u d i e n c e d e s p i te f e e l i n g nervous beforehand gave her the confidence that she could handle the public speaking required for her campaign and now for her work as a student representative, the high school student said. “I think she puts herself in situations that a lot of people wouldn’t put themselves in, and that are scary because you fear outside judgment,” Rhea McTiernan Huge said. “But because her goal is to help someone or to uplift someone, she can overcome that fear that a lot of us have and get to the point of action.” Grindrod said that when he first met the new board representative, in an AP U.S. History class he taught, she was a quiet student. “From May of last school year and the first two weeks of school, I have seen a different Dani,” Grindrod wrote in a text message, adding that “she is definitely no longer this soft spoken kid. She has a voice and is starting to use it.” Dani McT iernan Huge will join Aly in representing over 18,000 students across New Haven Public Schools. Contact JINGCHU SOPHIA ZHANG at jingchu.zhang@yale.edu.
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SCI-TECH
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
“I not only want to be able to extend my career and perform well at this stage for as long as I can, but also, I love the wellness and longevity.” NOVAK DJOKOVIC SERBIAN TENNIS PLAYER
Decorated researcher combines neuroscience and engineering at Yale BY ISABELLA TRAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Yale’s Wu Tsai Institute embraces an interdisciplinary approach to research — one that mirrors the philosophy of a new, widely-anticipated member of its faculty. Dani Bassett, a physicist and neuroscientist, joined the institute in July as the Wu Tsai professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Psychology. The institute aims to bring researchers studying human cognition together across disciplines including n e u ro s c i e n c e , p syc h o l o g y, engineering and computer science, according to its website. Bassett uses mathematical and computational models to study how interconnected systems — from the brain to society — function and change. “Professor Bassett is one of the world’s foremost experts on graph theory and network analysis,” Nick Turk-Browne GRD ’05 ‘07 ‘09, the Susan Nolen-Hoeksema professor of psychology and director of the Wu Tsai Institute, wrote in an email to the News. Bassett graduated with a B.S. in physics from Pennsylvania State University and a PhD in physics and psychiatry from the University of Cambridge. As a research fellow at the University of Santa Barbara, they developed concepts in network science, which they combined with research in neuroscience and cognition. They are the author of over 350 peer-reviewed publications. Bassett did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Kat Hefter, a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, joined Bassett’s lab without a research focus in neuroscience
or engineering. Hefter studies networks in human-made systems. Her research has examined how patients move through hospital systems and how network models can inform healthcare policy — a field far removed from those that dominate Bassett’s research. But Bassett took Hefter on anyway. “There aren’t a lot of faculty who would take a student like me, who has interests that are so different from what they usually do, but would still find a way to realize why I care about it and care about it for my sake and help me with it,” Hefter said. For Hefter, that openness is characteristic of Bassett’s approach to research. Bassett’s lab itself functions a s a n e two rk : re sea rc h e rs f r o m ra d i c a l l y d i f f e r e n t backgrounds are connected by a shared set of computational to o l s a n d a n o p e n n e ss to interdisciplinary questions. “It feels like everyone in the lab is doing their own research under the umbrella of the same method or the same field of the method,” Huili Sun ENG ’23 GRD ’25, a postdoctoral researcher in Yale’s Department of Psychology, said. Many of the researchers in their lab have diverse backgrounds in fields like neuroscience, m a t h e m a t i c s, e n g i n e e r i n g , public health and other fields. They then use network-based methods to investigate questions that do not necessarily fit within a single discipline. “ Da n i i s a o n ce - i n - a generation thought leader a n d a n ex t re m o p h i l e i n multidisciplinarity, right at the fulcrum of WTI’s core mission,” Kia Nobre, associate director of the Wu Tsai Institute, wrote to the News. “They are a pioneer in developing mathematically
MARTIN PERALTA / HEAD PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Dani Bassett, who arrived at Yale’s Wu Tsai Institute this summer, brings network science to the University’s study of human cognition. Bassett’s lab embraces interdisciplinary methods that span neuroscience, psychology and engineering. and physics-grounded graph theoretical network modelling and in applying the approach to understand biological systems, the human brain, cognition, social behavior, mental disorders, and machine intelligence.” Network science can serve as a kind of common language for the Wu Tsai Institute, allowing re sea rc h e rs w i t h d i f fe re n t a c a d e m i c b a c kg ro u n d s to c o m m u n i c a te e ve n w h e n they do not share the same disciplinary vocabulary. For instance, one of Bassett’s postdoctoral researchers, Leah Banellis, uses network models to understand connections in the brain. Hefter, who studies h ea l t h c a re sys te m s, u s e s similar mathematical tools to understand how patients move through a hospital. Although the systems themselves are
fundamentally different, the underlying methods can provide a common vocabulary. “Bassett will significantly bolster computational research and teaching at Yale,” Nobre said, “and will help integrate various strands of scholarship t h a t h ave re m a i n e d m o re segregated than desirable.” For Bassett’s researchers, the appeal of the method is its applicability to a multitude of disciplines. Banellis, a visiting researcher from Denmark who is joining Bassett’s lab this year, said she was drawn to the group in part because of its ability to use mathematical approaches to answer questions about interactions between the brain and the body, particularly concerning anxiety. The common thread across the lab, Banellis said, is not necessarily the subject
being studied, but the methods used to understand it. H e f te r ’s ow n re s ea rc h demonstrates that breadth. With a background in law, Hefter’s work has examined how patients move through hospital networks and how network models could help inform healthcare policy. Bassett’s expertise in computational methods and network models has allowed Hefter to approach those questions, she said, even though Bassett does not have a traditional health policy background. Bassett has received many accolades before arriving at Yale, including a MacArthur Fellowship and a National Science Foundation CAREER award and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Contact ISABELLA TRAN at i.tran@yale.edu.
With magic and protest signs, activists throw ocean a birthday party BY ANNA KOONTZ STAFF REPORTER Around a dozen people celebrated the ocean’s birthday in Broadway Triangle Park on Thursday. The group sang around a cake with flickering candles, but opted not to chant the age of the ocean — it is 3.8 billion years old. The event, led by the New Haven Climate Movement, featured snacks, climate bingo, a magic show and speeches. Participants expressed hope that the event’s optimistic framing would raise awareness about
environmental problems. “In climate change, there’s sort of a rhetoric being pushed that it’s all ‘doom and gloom,’” said Mercy John, a Climate Movement intern and second-year masters student at the University of Connecticut. “Why don’t we celebrate what we have now?” Appreciation for the ocean inspires activism to protect it, such as “holding our officials accountable,” John said. Both hand-painted banners and rallying speeches at the event encouraged using buses or bikes instead of cars to decrease carbon emissions.
“ T h i s i s a n i m p o r ta n t occasion to appreciate the priceless resources provided by the amazing biodiversity of the ocean, whether that’s oxygen, seafood, medicine, minerals and the power of international human connection,” Luannie Wang, a high schooler who attends the Hopkins School and serves as chair of the o r g a n i z a t i o n ’s Climate Education Committee, said. “But also to motivate people to take action against the forces endangering these things.” The Climate Movement also
hosted a birthday event in honor of the ocean last September. This year’s iteration featured different programming, including a magic show led by Cyril John May YSE ’89, a New Haven native and self-described “Merlin of environmental magic.” Wearing a wizard’s hat and robe, May wowed the crowd with magic tricks serving as analogies for global warming, recycling and strength in community. “If you were to come up to somebody and say, ‘The world is in trouble, it’s your fault, you’re a bad person if you don’t recycle,’
that’s not a way to help inspire people,” May said. Whether rope and ring tricks, a flaming book or a levitated plastic bottle, he hopes his shows can instead “entertain” and “empower.” May is the refuse and recycling coordinator for Waterbury, Connecticut and previously worked for over twenty years as a recycling coordinator at Yale. He said he combines this expertise with wizardry in interactive demonstrations to educate students on sustainability. “You can use magic to talk a b o u t re cyc l i n g , b e ca u se recycling and magic can both change old things into new things,” May said. In addition to coordinating w i t h M ay, p l a n n i n g t h e celebration involved several m e e t i n gs a m o n g i n te r n s, according to Climate Movement volunteer Katarina Rutka. Organizers wanted attendees to think about “how to adjust their lifestyle to be more ocean friendly,” Rutka said. In recent years, the Climate Movement has advocated for free public transportation fares in order to make public transportation more accessible. Bryan Arriaga-Ventura, a Climate Movement intern and junior at West Haven High School, said that expanding free student bus passes would be “climate friendly” and relieve a “massive barrier” for participating in afterschool activities. The Climate Movement is also currently planning a “Women Rock the Future” hike on Sept. 26 and ongoing advocacy for the regional greenhouse gas initiative. Alongside cake, attendees left the oceans’ birthday party with brochures on carbon-mindful transportation and plenty of ideas toward creating a better future. “Humans and the earth, we’re very resilient,” John said. Earth’s liquid oceans formed roughly 10 billion years after the Big Bang.
ANNA KOONTZ / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Members of the New Haven Climate Movement said they wanted to raise awareness around environmental issues through positivity — reflected in the attitudes of magicians and high school students as they celebrated in Broadway Triangle Park on Thursday.
Contact ANNA KOONTZ at anna.koontz@yale.edu.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
SCI-TECH
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“Everybody stepped up their game after me.” COCO GAUFF AMERICAN TENNIS PLAYER
School of Public Health dean talks federal grant cuts in annual speech BY ANYA GEIST STAFF REPORTER In the Yale School of Public Health’s annual State of the School address on Wednesday afternoon, dean Megan Ranney said philanthropic funding has become increasingly important in the wake of federal funding cuts. Ranney also discussed faculty engagement, student enrollment and community engagement. She said that although YSPH has received about 10 percent fewer grant dollars this year compared to last year, funding from Yale donors has helped faculty whose grants were cancelled to “at least temporarily weather the storm.” “ De s p i te the current headwinds, we have had 58 new grants this year alone. Importantly, many of these new grants represent a diversification in grant revenue,” Ranney said. “Our foundation funding, which is critically important during this era of uncertain federal support, is growing as well.” Ranney highlighted that YSPH has hired 13 new faculty and 42 new postdocs, lecturers and fellows in the past year, and that the Yale Institute of Global Health named a new director, Ingrid Katz, in the spring. The dean also shared that YSPH consistently educates around 550 Master of Public Health students, 150 Master of Science in Public Health students, and 100 PhD students, she said, meeting its enrollment goals. She said the school is always looking to make sure its classes serve students’ needs in changing environments. “Starting this summer, we’ve also begun a comprehensive review of our MPH program,” Ranney added. “I’m hearing from students, alumni and employers that with the rise of AI and with the changing public health landscape, our institution has both a chance, but also, I’d say, an obligation to lead in articulating the design principles for a 21st century MPH.” Joseph Riggio SPH ’28 studies mental health and the
MARTIN PERALTA / HEAD PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Megan Ranney, the school’s dean, addressed AI, funding cuts and new faculty, as well as student collaborations with local non-profits and community centers, in this year’s State of the School address. preliminary correlations between AI companion bots and psychosis. The school’s AI endeavors have included new classes about hands-on communication, leadership in divided times and the ethics of AI. “It’s a bit sensational, but recent suicides that have ended up in the news that have been claimed to be related to artificial intelligence. It’s a topic on my mind and on a lot of other people’s minds,” Riggio told the News. Regarding the new AI taskforce, he added, “I was sort of skeptical about the inclusion of AI. I hope students can participate on that task force and advocate a bit more about how professors and faculty use it in research.” Ranney’s speech was followed
by short comments from community members Steve Werlin, Audrey Huang and Edward Brown III. Werlin, the executive director of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, described the role that YSPH students have played in the organization. “The public health students we work with come from a different perspective,” Werlin said to the crowd. “So, whereas those social work students really are making those one-on-one connections, the public health students are coming into our space to answer big questions, questions that are related to research, that are related to systemic change, that are related to moving the ball forward and creating new program models that can really
change lives, not in an immediate sense, but down the road.” Ranney also described the role that AI is playing at YSPH. PopHIVE, YSPH’s public health data collection site, launched an AI connector with Anthropic over the summer. According to the PopHIVE website, the connector helps re s ea rc h e rs, p o l i cy m a ke rs and other data users use and understand PopHIVE data, by linking the data to large language models and AI agents. Ranney said that the connector has been used 2.8 million times since its release. As YSPH incorporates AI into PopHIVE, it is also assembling an AI taskforce to assess what place artificial intelligence has
in the school. “We’re holding symposia on both the technical and ethical sides of this work, thinking about the landscape’s design, if you will,” Ranney said. Ranney also touched on plans to build a new YSPH building, which were announced in spring 2025. Construction is supposed to begin in June 2027 and finish five years later, she said. She showed the audience artist renderings of the new building on College Street. The new YSPH building will be located at 47 College Street. Michelle So contributed reporting. Contact
ANYA GEIST at anya.geist@yale.edu.
Yale AI club kicks off year with demonstration of SpaceXAI’s Grok Bot BY MELISSA ADAMANTIDI STAFF REPORTER The Yale AI Association held its kickoff event Wednesday evening at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, co-hosted with SpaceXAI. YaleAI members walked through plans for the year, including project teams, a fellowship for students learning fundamental AI concepts, trips to AI labs and a building competition. The club also conducted a demonstration using Grok Bot, SpaceXAI’s AI agent product. David Antwi ’28, YaleAI’s project director, framed the year as one ripe with opportunity for Yale’s student builders. “It’s the best time to build, if you’re interested in AI, if you want to be a founder, and that’s what we want to help bring to Yale,” Antwi said. “We feel like Yale was behind in the AI race.” YaleAI has partnered with SpaceXAI, one of a growing list of the club’s industry partners, according to board members. At the meeting, members said that AI agents of the company’s Grok Bot can keep working even when the user’s laptop is closed. One board member showed a routine he had set up where an agent checks Canvas each morning at 8 a.m., downloads new files and assignments and organizes them into a project. “SpaceXAI is very interested in partnering with existing student clubs in order to foster a unique campus environment in which everyone is building,” said Filippo Fonseca ’28, head of development. “So, they are being very generous with students.” Board members said the group prioritizes in-person programming. Last spring, members traveled to Boston, where they visited Massachusetts Institute of Technology facilities
MELISSA ADAMANTIDI / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
At Wednesday’s event, board members of the Yale AI Association demonstrated Grok Bot, the AI agent product of SpaceXAI, and laid out project teams, a fall fellowship and a building competition. and held a mixer with a Harvard machine learning group. The group also hosted an AI showcase that brought together research labs from across departments, through which some students obtained research positions. “Our main way of operating is through in-person events. We love that. We feel like in the age of AI, it’s the most important thing to have a connection with each other, and at the same time, foster relationships,” Fonseca said. “And so, we want to take trips, for example, and we will, we have them planned, to top frontier labs, to institutions that do research in AI.” YaleAI leaders told attendees
who filled Tsai CITY’s ground floor that the group is meant to be more than a mailing list, and that YaleAI membership requires no application. T h e g ro u p a i m s to b e accessible to all students, regardless of their technical background or major, leaders said. Educational workshops are directed at students learning to use AI tools, while project teams are for students who want to build, with the goal of pairing each team with an industry or institutional partner. “I think what differentiates Ya l e A I f ro m t h e o t h e r AI-oriented clubs on campus is that ours is very technical focused,” co-president Addison
Shea ’29 said. “And so if you want to learn how to apply AI or build using AI, this is really the place to be.” The first event of the semester will be dinner with Pareto VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, on Sept. 15. Board members also announced a competition to build a web application useful to Yale students, due Friday at midnight, with submissions requiring a one- to two-minute demo video. Three winners will receive three free months of Cursor, an AI coding assistant. The fall fellowship will place participants in cohorts to learn fundamental AI concepts and applications, following an educational program the group
ran last fall. Shea said that Demo Day, where project teams present their work, was the event she expects members to anticipate most. “I think Demo Day will be really enticing both for the people on the project teams to showcase the work that they’ve done all term, and then, hopefully, all year,” Shea said. “But then also for the members who are interested in seeing what can be done using the tools, I think it can be very exciting.” The Yale AI Association was founded in 2022. Contact MELISSA ADAMANTIDI at melissa.adamantidi@yale.edu.
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
“The freshmen have gelled perfectly with our team. Everyone works well together and helps one another every day in practice.” LAURECE ABRAHAM ’27
Undefeated Bulldogs sweep weekend against Fairfield and U.C. Davis FIELD HOCKEY BY VINCENT HUANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Yale Field Hockey (4–0, 0–0 Ivy) continued its seamless start to the 2026 season by defeating Fairfield (2–2, 0–0 CAA) and the University of California,
Dav i s ( 2 – 4 , 0 – 0 M P S F ) , emerging from the weekend as the only remaining undefeated team in the Ivy League. I n Fr i d ay ’s 2 -1 v i c to ry against Fairfield, forward Chiara Picciafuoco ’28 continued her red-hot season, recording a goal to open the scoring before joining Carys Isherwood ’29 to assist Issy Baileff ’28 for the Bulldogs’ second goal of the day. A late goal from Fairfield made
the final score 2-1. Sunday saw Yale hammer the University of California, Davis’ Aggies in a 3-0 rout, with all three scores coming in a thirdquarter Bulldog onslaught. Midfielder Victoria Collee ’28 found the net for the first goal of her career, followed by a brace from Issy Baileff, with Picciafuoco and Emma Ramsey ’27 contributing assists on all three scores.
LIZA KAUFMAN / PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
No. 18 Yale Field Hockey successfully defended home turf in a pair of victories against the Stags and Aggies, remaining the only undefeated team in the Ivy League. The Bulldogs will now face Brown and Cornell at home this weekend.
The 2026 season has been a career year in offensive production for Picciafuoco. Her 2026 tally of seven goals and five assists in four games are already career highs. “I had a positional switch from center midfield last year to forward this year, which has allowed me to be more of an offensive player and have more confidence in my game,” Picciafuoco wrote in a statement to the News reviewed by Yale Athletics spokesperson Sam Rubin. On the defensive side of the ball, Yale’s stout play has been a story of the season, with the Bulldogs allowing only 0.5 goals per game. Senior back Hettie Whittington ’27 noted that Yale’s experienced defense contributes to its dominant play. “Our defensive line is not only very experienced but also very receptive to feedback and keen to learn,” Whittington wrote in a statement to the News reviewed by Rubin. “I think a lot of our success this year can be attributed to the fact that we have been playing more confidently and aiming to win the ball higher up the pitch, which has been a good look for us.” Whittington also offered high praise for sophomore keeper Amelie Schwarzkopf ’29. “ I m p o r t a n t l y, w i t h a year of experience under her b e l t n ow, o u r so p h o m o re goalkeeper Amelie has also been key to helping us maintain our structure and execute our defensive game plan,” Whittington wrote. In Fr i d a y ’s contest, Schwarzkopf turned in a strong defensive performance with eight saves, tied for thirdhighest in her collegiate career. On Sunday, she delivered her second clean sheet of the season. She currently leads the Ivy in save percentage at 0.900.
S c h w a rz k o p f e m p h a s i z e d how defensive continuity has enabled Yale’s strong play. “The defensive approach h a s n o t c h a n ge d rea l ly,” Sc h wa rz ko p f w ro te i n a statement to the News reviewed by Rubin. “As a team we continue to work on it every game and practise to improve it, helping also the freshmen get more comfortable each time they play in it.” Fo r newcomer Liza Semenenko ’29, a sophomore transfer from Swarthmore, the efficiency and winning culture of the Bulldogs has been particularly striking. In a statement to the News reviewed by Rubin, she remarked on the difference between her prior Division III program and her new home. “The biggest change has been the pace of play and how quickly the game moves at the D1 level,” Semenenko wrote. “Much of that has also been how well-drilled the Yale team is and the intensity at which we practice.” The Bulldogs have emerged victorious in six of their last seven home games at Johnson Field, a trend they will hope to continue as they open Ivy League play this weekend. “We’ve had a great start to the season, going 4–0, and we’re excited to keep giving everything we have for our coaches, teammates, parents, alumni, and everyone who supports us and has been part of this team over the years,” Picciafuoco wrote. The Bulldogs’ season continues with Brown (2–2, 0–0 Ivy) and Cornell (1–4, 0–0 Ivy) coming to Johnson Field this Friday and Sunday, respectively. Contact VINCENT HUANG at v.huang@yale.edu.
Elis keep up undefeated streak in wins against New Hampshire, UConn VOLLEYBALL BY TANNER BATTLE STAFF REPORTER Yale volleyball (6–0, 0–0 Ivy) finished the University of Connecticut Invitational last weekend with two wins and no losses under their belt. The Bulldogs swept the University of New Hampshire (7–3, 0–0 America East) 3-0 in straight sets on Saturday. The Elis rode the momentum of that win into Sunday, when Yale played four tough sets against UConn (5–5, 0–0 Big East), only dropping one to the Huskies, to finish the match 3-1. The Bulldogs arrived in Storrs, Conn., hungry to extend their win streak after they captured the Yale Invitational, where they defeated Hofstra (4–2, 0–0 CAA), Manhattan (0–6, 0–0 Metro) and Santa Clara (2–5, 0–0 WCC). To start off the match on Saturday, the Elis beat the Wildcats in the opening set by nine points, which set the tone for the rest of the match and tournament. New Hampshire put up a stronger fight in the second set, but the Bulldogs rallied to win the set by four points. The Bulldogs did not take their foot off the gas in the final set, finishing it off 3-0. Laurece Abraham ’27 led the offense for Yale with 17 kills over the duration of the
match. She has consistently contributed on the offensive end this season after rigorous offseason training. “The trainers here have helped me a lot with staying healthy and getting stronger,” Abraham wrote in an email to the News. “My teammates have also been amazing in practice constantly pushing me and helping everyone get better.” The Bulldogs came out ready to bite on Sunday, taking the first set by 10 points. The three sets that followed were tighter, only decided by four points or fewer, but the Elis only dropped one set. W h i l e f ive f i rs t yea rs, including the starting setter Kalyssa Taggart ’30, joined the team this year, the Bulldogs are already playing as a unit. “The freshmen have gelled perfectly with our team,” Abraham wrote. “Everyone works well together and helps one another every day in practice.” The Bulldogs will now take the week to train for their Texas trip, where they will take on the No. 11 TCU (6–2, 0–0 Big 12) Horned Frogs and No. 8 SMU Mustangs (6–1, 0–0 ACC). Yale will take on TCU at 1 p.m. Eastern in Fort Worth before heading to play SMU at 3 p.m. Eastern in Dallas.
Stat of the Day
Contact TANNER BATTLE at tanner.battle@yale.edu.
TANNER BATTLE / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Bulldogs handily crushed the University of New Hampshire and the University of Connecticut at UConn’s invitational over the weekend, extending this season’s winning streak to six matches.
THE BULLDOGS HAVE EMERGED VICTORIOUS IN SIX OF THEIR LAST SEVEN HOME GAMES AT JOHNSON FIELD, A TREND THEY WILL HOPE TO CONTINUE AS THEY OPEN IVY LEAGUE PLAY THIS WEEKEND.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
DATA The class of 2030, by the numbers CAMP YALE
FROM THE EDITOR
AI USAGE
BY ADRIANA PETRIZZO DATA EDITOR
45.5%
Over the last three weeks, the News’ Data Desk surveyed the class of 2030 to gauge their current views, experiences and expectations at Yale. The questionnaire was sent to 1,634 first years and received 517 total responses, representing about 31.6 percent of the class. The number of responses varies by question.
FOOT
HIGH SCHOOL
58.4%
16.2%
attended public, noncharter high schools
FOCUS
5.9%
attended public charter high schools
7.5%
0.2%
HARVEST
WHY YALE?
27.3%
attended private, nonreligious high schools
8.2%
attended private, religious high schools
of survey respondents were homeschooled
VIEWS OF RESPONDENTS
FAMILY
SUBSTANCES
EXTRACURRICULARS
54.5% of respondents participated in athletics in high school
43.5%
79.9%
of respondents did community service in high school
19.1%
of respondents were in the National Honor Society
of respondents did Model UN in high school
7.7%
40.7%
of respondents danced in high school
of respondents did research in high school
STATISTICS
11.7%
of respondents identified as bisexual
28.1%
of respondents paid for a college counselor
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YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 · yaledailynews.com