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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2021 · VOL. CXLIII, NO. 19 · yaledailynews.com
Yale College scraps traditional shopping period BY JULIA BIALEK STAFF REPORTER Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors will now have to register for fall courses at the end of the spring semester. Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun announced the new registration timeline for the fall 2021 term in an email to undergraduates on March 8, following the pandemic’s acceleration of a long-planned change to an early class registration system. In the past, course registration has taken place in the weeks immediately preceding a semester. But this year, Yale College is joining many of its peer institutions and shifting to an early class registration system that will take place the semester before the term in question for currently enrolled students and students returning from a leave of absence, with first years, reinstated students, new Eli Whitney students and transfer students registering during an add/drop period in the fall. The change was made in
response to what Chun described as long-standing student and faculty frustration with the previous registration system and shopping period. “We are responding to long-standing requests from students and from faculty to have a process that gives students more certainty about which classes they are in or not,” Chun told the News, adding that the plan has been over five years in the making. “In particular, it matters the most for limited enrollment classes. In the past, when we tried to do it at the beginning of the term, it was very rushed, stressful and somewhat disorganized because everyone was on their own timelines. Another big part of early registration is to organize and align registration so that everyone can count on having the best information available.” According to an email sent to undergraduates on Monday, Yale Course Search will go live on SEE REGISTRATION PAGE 4
ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
The early course registration period for the spring will end on May 28, over a week after the final examination period ends.
Dubois-Walton starts exploratory committee The 'Healthy Yale'
Fence that wasn't
LUCY HODGMAN/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER DANIEL ZHAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Dubois-Walton addressed a crowd of roughly 100 supporters and campaign staff on Wilmot Rd. in West Rock. BY THOMAS BIRMINGHAM AND OWEN TUCKER-SMITH STAFF REPORTERS On Monday afternoon, Karen DuBois-Walton ’89 — president of Elm City Communities, the Housing Authority of New Haven —
publicly launched an exploratory committee for the 2021 New Haven mayoral Democratic primary. The Yale alumna addressed a crowd of roughly 100 supporters and campaign staff outside the Community Center on Wilmot Road in West Rock, promis-
ing to deliver a “New Haven for All” should she reach the mayor’s office. She stressed her experience at Elm City Communities and said her exploratory committee is meant to stimulate the same SEE MAYORAL PAGE 4
The fence was removed on March 7 after OPAC learned it was in violation of university policy. BY LUCY HODGMAN STAFF REPORTER Campus and social media was recently abuzz with speculation about the origins of a mysterious fence that appeared on Cross Campus — a fence that has since been removed as stealthily as it appeared.
The fence was installed by the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communication, in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, as part of OPAC’s “Healthy Yale” campaign. Although initially intended to serve as the foundation SEE FENCE PAGE 5
Humanities Quadrangle NHPS high schools to reopen on April 5 opens its doors — to some BY CHRISTIAN ROBLES STAFF REPORTER
BY MADISON HAHAMY STAFF REPORTER Formerly known as the Hall of Graduate Studies, the Human-
ities Quadrangle Building at 320 York St. is now open and in use for department staff, faculty and SEE HUMANITIES PAGE 5
YALE DAILY NEWS
18 units will occupy the building, including Comparative Literature, French, History, the Humanities Program, Judaic Studies, Spanish and Portuguese.
CROSS CAMPUS THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1964.
The University announces that four English professors — Thomas M. Greene, Alvin B. Kernan, Richard S. Sylvester and Harold Bloom — get tenure appointments.
After offering an in-person hybrid learning option for elementary and middle school students, New Haven Public Schools has now announced that they will welcome back high school students in the first week of April. The superintendent, Iline Tracey, sent a message to the NHPS community and Board of Education members Friday that high school students will have hybrid and virtual learning options beginning on April 5. According to The New Haven Register, which first reported additional details about the reopening plan, NHPS’s high school reopening schedule gives the district time to hire enough nurses to staff every school. Tracey’s message came just one day after students in grades 6-8 were allowed to return to school classrooms for hybrid learning and over a month after students in pre-K
INSIDE THE NEWS EQUITY
What is health equity, and what can people to do achieve it? Yale scientists weigh in on these questions as the pandemic has exacerbated health inequity in New Haven. Page 7 SCITECH
COVID-19
JAMES LARSON/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The district high schools’ reopening comes over a month after students in pre-K through fifth grade returned to classrooms. through fifth grade returned to a hybrid model. Like previous reopening plans, the high school reopening announcement is a divisive decision for the community. “I am fully in support of [high school students] returning to school ... because you can still do hybrid or
With eased COVID19 restrictions on the horizon, city officials are preparing to make the expansion of New Haven business capacity as smooth and safe as possible. Page 8 CITY
SEAS
Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is completing its strategic plan, a roadmap for the school that is smaller and functions differently from peer institutions. Page 9 UNIVERSITY
in-person learning,” Board of Education member Larry Conway said. “By the time we will be fully engaged, it would have been 13 months [of virtual education], we have just learned so much since then.” SEE REOPENING PAGE 5
MALARIA
A Yale researcher has partnered with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop an RNA vaccine against the malaria parasite. Page 11 SCITECH