NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2014 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 58 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY CLEAR
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CROSS CAMPUS
THE GAME ELIS READY FOR SATURDAY
DEPARTMENT ISSUES
REPUBLICAN SWEEP
Spanish and Portuguese Department faces financial problems
FACULTY PONDER NIH FUNDING WITH NEW CONGRESS
PAGE 12 SPORTS
PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
PAGE 5 UNIVERSITY
New Haven Promise develops
Is that it? After much
commotion and hoopla, On Harvard Time finally released its prank video for this year’s game. Let’s just say it was a little underwhelming — after all, it is a little hard to pull a fast one on a campus that already knows what’s happening. But on the bright side, the Cantabs got to pretend that they were Yale students for a day, which they seem to really like doing.
guides are hosting an arts and crafts event today in the Center. At “The Game” Tea, attendees will prepare for Saturday’s matchup in a classy and civil way. Which is refreshing (like the tea they’ll be drinking, we suppose).
W, X, Y and Z. Former President George W. Bush ’68 was adorned with yet another honor yesterday, when it was announced that a Texas elementary school would be named after him. Doing it all. USCHO.com, one of college hockey’s preeminent media sources, profiled Yale’s squad after its weekend sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard. Lauding the Eli skaters’ ability to fill multiple positions to make up for injured players, the article hinted at optimism for the rest of the Bulldogs’ season. Deliver me. Little-known fact: New Haven is home to some of the best mail carriers in the country. The U.S. Postal Service announced yesterday that 44 Elm City deliverymen and women will be inducted into the National Safety Council’s “Million Mile Club” for consistently getting packages from A to B safely. Salute. A Different Package. Not
long after putting on its fall semester show, A Different Drum is back at it. The troupe is offering “Dance Grams,” which students can send to their friends after break ends. The delivery? “An interpretive dance or the Mean Girls infamous talent show number.” THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1880 The Yale College Council votes, 16 to 11, against a proposal to place a Council member on each important University committee, citing concerns about efficiency. Submit tips to Cross Campus
crosscampus@yaledailynews.com
ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus
PAGE 8 SPORTS
High admin pay at odds with cuts, some faculty say
event, the sixth of its kind, is hosted by New Haven Promise. The event kicked off on Wednesday evening with speeches from NHP Executive Director Patricia Melton and Mayor Toni Harp. Harp emphasized that having the conference in New Haven would help further NHP’s efforts to expand college access. “I think the fact we’ve been able
To computer science professor Michael Fischer, there is something in the University’s decision to continue budget cuts that does not add up. “Somehow crying poor in the face of an administration that has recently spent $17 million on the president’s mansion and given million-dollar bonuses to top administrators does not ring true,” Fischer said. Fischer is not alone — the formal announcement that the administration would continue budget cuts brought renewed criticism from faculty across the University. On Tuesday, faculty and staff received an email from University President Peter Salovey and Provost Benjamin Polak confirming what had long been suspected: Yale would maintain the three-year budget targets set last fall. The statement clarified that despite positive news — including a slight surplus in the fiscal 2014 year, strong revenue from the medical school clinical practice and the endowment at an all-time nominal high — the pressures from rising costs and new initiatives necessitate the University “stay the course.” While faculty interviewed were largely unsurprised, many remain unconvinced by the justifications provided in the email. Assyriology professor Benjamin Foster GRD ’75 said while great institutions can and
SEE NH PROMISE PAGE 4
SEE BUDGET PAGE 4
President Michael Herbert ’16 challenged him to settle things in the ring, mano a mano, Harvard senior Gus Mayopoulos *politely* declined. At least On Harvard Time had the guts to show up and put themselves out there.
Pinky out. The YCBA student
The Bulldogs notch a win in their first home game of the season
BY LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTER
Duck, duck, Gus. After YCC
Help Harvard instead. This afternoon, comedy writer Joe Toplyn will be stopping by Branford to give a Master’s Tea on “How to Be Funny.” In light of recent events, it might be more useful for him to pay a visit to those kids up north.
BASKETBALL
MICHELLE CHAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Mayor Toni Harp spoke at a conference on Wednesday about New Haven Promise’s efforts to expand college access. BY LILLIAN CHILDRESS AND SKYLER INMAN STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER About 200 education and economic development experts from across the country gathered in the Yale University Art Gallery on Wednesday evening to celebrate the first night of PromiseNet 2014 — a three-day national education conference. PromiseNet brings together
members of the national “promise network,” which consists of organizations that provide in-state college scholarships to local public school students, as well as representatives from other similar education and community organizations around the country. The conference includes workshops and discussion sessions designed to give the organizations a platform to discuss challenges and successes in their respective cities. This year’s
Diversity in faculty still lacking, many say BY TASNIM ELBOUTE AND LARRYMILSTEIN STAFF REPORTERS Nine months after an external review found Yale to be lacking in faculty and administrative diversity, the University appears to be seriously considering the review’s recommendations. On Nov. 6, Provost Benja-
min Polak released to the faculty the findings and recommendations from the February 2014 Yale Diversity Summit, which provided 16 recommendations to the administration on how to improve diversity among faculty and administrators. The suggestions ranged from demanding greater transparency in diversity metrics to creating a pool of
resources to target diverse faculty appointments. The summit included an external visiting committee — made up of nine professors, researchers and physicians from across the country — that spent two days interviewing faculty and staff in an effort provide University administrators with strategies to improve diversity
Suits raise questions of race and admissions BY TYLER FOGGATT STAFF REPORTER Last winter, an Asian-American student was denied admission to Harvard College, despite his stellar test scores and distinction as an AP Scholar and National Merit semifinalist. On Monday, the student, now a member of Students for Fair Admissions Inc., filed a lawsuit against Harvard for employing “racially and ethnically discriminatory policies and procedures” during the undergraduate admissions process. Students for Fair Admissions — a group that represents students who believe they were rejected by schools because of their race — fights against what SFA Director Edward Blum termed as limitations imposed by colleges across the nation on the admission of Asian-American and Caucasian students under affirmative action policies. The group supports the claim that affirmative action harms populations that are allegedly over-represented on college campuses, Blum added. Blum said the organization’s mission is to facilitate legal challenges that will end the use of racial classification preferences by American universities in their admissions processes. Although
the group has only filed complaints against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill thus far, Blum said the goal is to file a handful of lawsuits around the country, and that Yale is absolutely one of their targeted schools. “We believe that we will be able to show various courts that whether it’s Yale in Connecticut or Harvard in Massachusetts, these schools are classifying people by race, treating them differently by race and have strict quotas for Asian-American students,” Blum said. He added that Harvard has a long, “ugly” history of using holistic admissions criteria to prevent certain types of students from being admitted. In the 1920s, Harvard used its holistic process to diminish the number of Jewish students admitted, he said. Harvard is currently using this same approach to diminish the number of Asian-American students admitted, he added, and the rest of the Ivy League — including Yale — is doing the same. The complaints filed against Harvard and UNC cite substantial quantitative data. Both cite the perfect ACT and SAT subject test scores of the rejected students, their GPAs and the amount of
at Yale. According to the report, the committee found that faculty are largely frustrated with Yale’s lack of commitment to diversify the professoriate. “Yale seems to be lagging peer institutions in its demonstrated commitment to faculty diversity and inclusion,” Dean and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the Duke Uni-
versity School of Medicine and visiting committee member Nancy Andrews ’80 GRD ’80 said in an email. “As an alumna, I sincerely hope that Yale will aspire to leadership in this area, as it has in many others.” The report added that the University may also be ineffecSEE DIVERSITY PAGE 6
Final exams capped at 50 percent BY DAVID SHIMER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Starting this winter, students will not have to worry about heavily weighted final exams damaging their overall grades. The Yale College Council recommended a cap at the end of fall 2013
in an effort to reduce student stress, and The Course of Study Committee approved the request the following spring. This new Yale College policy limits a final exam from being worth more than 50 percent of a student’s grade. Students interviewed SEE FINALS PAGE 6
BRIANNA LOO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
SEE ADMISSIONS PAGE 4
A new policy caps final exams’ weight at no more than 50 percent of a student’s grade.