NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVII, NO. 99 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
CLOUDY CLOUDY
38 9
CROSS CAMPUS
WINNER, WINNER MEN’S BBALL SWEEPS 2 GAMES
A CHANGING CORE
POP BY THE POPS
Yale-NUS’s Common Curriculum to undergo faculty review.
DAVENPORT POPS CELEBRATE THEIR 10TH ANNIVERSARY.
PAGE B1 SPORTS
PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
PAGE 5 CULTURE
Near named Saybrook master
Almost out of the woods.
February is over, midterms are nearly through and Spring Break is days away. Random, inconvenient snowstorms aside, things are finally looking up here in New Haven. Godspeed for the final push.
at least he is. Comedy writer (i.e., not the quarterback) Steve Young, best known for his work on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” is the guest of honor at a Trumbull Master’s Tea this afternoon. The anticipated subject of the talk is, simply, being funny, something we could use a pointer or two on.
Forever & Always. Choosing a college is a big commitment. Such is the reality that columnist Michelle Singletary hoped to convey in a piece for the Washington Post this weekend that discussed the absolute importance of diligently considering all options before settling upon the school that’ll irreversibly shape one’s life. Unless one manages to transfer. Welcome to New Haven. On Saturday, a new batch of Yale Tour Guides was selected for both the Admissions Office and Visitor Center. We’d imagine that many people checking out campus are also trying to get a feel for the Elm City, which sells itself more easily than some suggest. THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1989 University officials reveal difficulties in attempts to remove asbestos from various campus facilities. Follow along for the News’ latest.
Twitter | @yaledailynews
ONLINE y MORE goydn.com/xcampus
Yale endowment report projects future growth
serves as the director of undergraduate studies in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, in addition to being the associate curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Near, who teaches the course “Ichthyology,” focuses on fish in his research and has led a Yale Summer Session class on the topic. “Let’s hear it for fish!” Salovey enthused, drawing cheers from the audience. SEE SAYBROOK MASTER PAGE 6
SEE ENDOWMENT PAGE 4
Nothing has changed. The
We were both Young. Well,
PAGE 8 CITY
With Yale’s $23.9 billion endowment at a historic nominal high, the University continues to project strong growth rates, according to the annual report released late last week by the Yale Investments Office. In the 28-page document, the Investments Office detailed both the guiding principles of its investment strategy and predicted how shifting asset allocations would affect growth in the coming years. Though the $4 billion investment gain during fiscal 2014 — a 20.2 percent return — was announced in September, the full report justified the composition of the University’s current holdings and detailed the investment policy for the longer term. The report also outlined the University’s continued reliance on the endowment as a source of revenue for funding operations. During fiscal 2014, the endowment was responsible for subsidizing nearly 33 percent of the University’s $3.1 billion income. Over the last decade, spending from the endowment has continued to rise at an annual growth rate of roughly 8 percent, nearly doubling from $502 million to roughly $1 billion. Chief Investment Officer David Swensen declined to comment, but investment experts said the University’s endowment structure — from its heavy allocation to nontraditional assets, including venture capital, real estate and natural resources, to its increase of foreign equity targets — has allowed Yale to consistently rank in the top tier of institutional investors. “Alternative assets, by their very nature, tend to be less efficiently priced than tradi-
tried to warn you, O Grand Strategists. But despite the News’ best efforts and those of professor Jeremy Friedman last week, one of Yale’s finest neglected to write his or her name on a proposal for a Grand Strategy summer project. Let’s hope the student can bounce back from Friedman’s “sternly” worded email to the class on Friday afternoon. Honestly, this is becoming pathetic.
Picture to burn. Over the weekend, a photo of a cramped Lanman-Wright Hall double made rounds on Reddit, generating significant attention for encapsulating “what $2,122 a month gets you (and a roommate) at Yale.” Fortunately for OP, Pierson’s rooms have a little more space.
Ivy Noodle’s doors stay closed, with no word as to when they might open.
BY LARRY MILSTEIN STAFF REPORTER
He’s got a blank space. We
goal of every Grand Strategy student is to end up like George H.W. Bush ’48, George W. Bush ’68 or Bill Clinton LAW ’73. The three former United States Presidents recently helped create the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, which will bring together real-world leaders into a realworld version of Friedman’s class. Upon completing it, the program’s attendees will attend a ceremony hosted by the younger Bush and Clinton.
NO MORE NOODLE?
ALEXANDRA SCHMELING/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The next master of Saybrook College, EEB professor Thomas Near, addresses students in the college’s dining hall. BY EMMA PLATOFF AND RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTERS Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Thomas Near will be the next master of Saybrook College, University President Peter Salovey announced to a crowd of students Friday evening in the college’s dining hall. Near will succeed Paul Hudak, who will step down at the end of this academic year. Amid applause from the roughly 200 Saybrugians, Salovey
and Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway lauded Near for his research on fish and already-proven commitment to the Saybrook community as a fellow of the college. Near’s fiveyear term will start on July 1. “I, like you, started at Yale as a Saybrugian,” Near said. “There will be time for us to get to know each other. There will be time for us to share our stories with one another.” Near came to Yale in 2006 after teaching for three years at the University of Tennessee. He currently
Student petition demands CS faculty increase BY STEPHANIE ROGERS STAFF REPORTER As of 11:30 p.m. last night, 289 Yale students and affiliates had signed a petition calling for the University administration to increase the number of faculty in the Computer Science Department. The petition comes nearly two weeks after an open letter to the administration penned by computer science graduate student Rasmus Kyng GRD ’17
and signed by 25 out of the 33 current Ph.D. students in the department. The letter, first published in the News, is nearly identical to the latest petition, which was published by computer science major Alex Reinking ’16 on his personal website. The two documents differ only in their opening sentences. “We are distraught by the condition of Yale’s Computer Science Department,” the petition reads. “Our department lacks enough faculty to offer
Term bill to increase by 4 percent BY RACHEL SIEGEL STAFF REPORTER For the third year in a row, the cost of attending Yale will increase by roughly 4 percent. During its February meeting, the Yale Corporation approved an increase in the Yale College term bill for the 2015–16 academic year. With this rise, students not on financial aid will pay $62,200 per year compared to the $59,800 undergraduate bill for the 2014–15 academic year. Tuition will rise from $45,800 to $47,600, and the cost of room and board will rise from $14,000 to $14,600. “The increases in the term bill reflect increases in the costs of the underly-
ing expenses that the term bill pays for,” University President Peter Salovey said. “Our goal is to make Yale accessible to anyone who can get in, and so we work very hard to keep increases in the term bill as modest as we can.” Because financial aid packages are automatically adjusted to compensate for changes in the term bill, Yale College students on financial aid will not pay any more than they currently do, YaleNews reported. Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi could not be reached for comment. Sixty-four percent of undergraduates receive some financial assistance SEE TERM BILL PAGE 4
the breadth and depth of classes expected at a modern university, let alone a world-class research institution.” Reinking said he developed the petition with the help of other undergraduates and received permission from Kyng’s fellow authors to reuse most of their original letter. Reinking added that he hopes the renewed effort to bring attention to the faculty issue will result in an appropriate response from the adminis-
tration, which has yet to make a public statement about the future of the Computer Science Department. While the administration has not offered a formal, public response to the recent efforts, it has acknowledged the graduate students’ letter. “We did read the letter from some of the graduate students in Computer Science. It is clear that they care passionately about their department,” said Associate Provost for Science
and Technology Jim Slattery in a Feb. 25 email. Computer science is now the seventh-most popular undergraduate major at Yale. The petition and letter, which demand a “radical expansion of the computer science faculty” note that the median faculty size of the top 20 computer science departments in the country is 48. Yale currently has 20 computer science professors — SEE CS PETITION PAGE 4
SUN decries student effort in fin aid BY FINNEGAN SCHICK STAFF REPORTER Nearly 100 students gathered in front of Woodbridge Hall on Friday to protest students’ contributions to their own financial aid packages. The protest, organized by Students Unite Now, called on the University to eliminate a policy that requires undergraduates on financial aid to contribute to their education through savings or income from a summer job. For freshmen, the total student effort contribution stands at $4,475, while for sophomores, juniors and seniors, it is $6,400. After sharing their stories for half an hour, the protestors split into five groups and delivered a document containing 1,100 student signatures to all the residential college masters and five top Yale administrators. During the protest, students chanted against “the student
contribution,” referring to the combined student income contribution performed over the summer and term-time “selfhelp” contribution — Yale’s requirement that students on financial aid contribute to their own education. For freshmen, the self-help requirement is $2,850 per year. For sophomores, juniors and seniors, it is $3,350. The student income contribution is $1,625 and $3,050 for freshmen and upperclassmen, respectively. “I want to see the student income contribution eliminated,” SUN organizer Avani Mehta ’15 said. “I think that’s the only way we can have a Yale where students choose how they learn and how they work.” The protesters argued that the required contribution creates a division along socioeconomic lines between Yale students who must secure paid employment as part of their financial aid packages, both
during the academic year and over the summer, and those who do not have such requirements. The protest began at 12:30 p.m. on Beinecke Plaza, where several students shared their experiences with managing extracurricular activities and schoolwork while also earning enough money to fulfill Yale’s student income contribution requirement. Yamile Lozano ’17 said she was not aware of Yale’s student income contribution policy before she applied to Yale. As a first-generation, lowincome and minority student, Lozano said she had hoped to advance both herself and her family during her time at Yale, but the contribution prevented her from becoming financially independent in the way she had hoped to. “I have to give up my time to make up the contribution,” LozSEE FINANCIAL AID PAGE 6