2019 by the numbers: Keeping faith at Yale

2019 by the numbers:
Keeping faith at Yale

By Stephanie Addenbrooke
and Emma Platoff
Graphics by Amanda Mei
Photo by Ken Yanagisawa
Published on September 2, 2015

On Saturday morning, two groups of more than 600 freshmen each were ushered into a sunlit Woolsey Hall by the deep tones of an organ playing, among other pieces, Maurice Durufle’s “Fugue on the Soissons Cathedral Bell Theme.” The program went on to include a hymn, “Oh God, beneath Thy Guiding Hand,” and concluded with a benediction by University Chaplain Sharon Kugler.

Each year, the rich chords of religious music and the holy verses of religious rhetoric welcome the incoming class at the Freshman Assembly. For some students, these traditions make the event a familiar, comforting opening to the year, facilitating their transition into a new environment by providing continuity. Still, for some, the prominence of faith is jarring, or even inappropriate amid the University’s non-religious mission and diverse student body.

Many describe Yale, for better or for worse, as a secular campus. Indeed, 44 percent of survey respondents identified as atheist, agnostic or non-religious.

But those students who did identify with a particular cultural background, be it religious or ethnic, separated themselves from the rest of the class before even stepping foot on campus, demonstrating certain social and extracurricular preferences accordingly.

Question: Which of the following religions do you observe or practice, if any?

(Amanda Mei)

JOINING THE COMMUNITY

David Schwartz ’19 was still settling into his room in Vanderbilt Hall on Friday when leaders from Yale Hillel arrived at his door to welcome him to campus and invite him to Friday’s Shabbat dinner. Hillel was not the only organization to make early moves — upperclassmen from several religious and cultural groups visited freshman dorms last weekend, carrying gifts like candy and portable phone chargers in hand.

Schwartz, a Conservative Jew, said he is interested in joining the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, and he is enthusiastic about competing with the Yale Undergraduate Rover Association as well. But while he expects to be involved in some capacity with the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, he added that he is not as sure yet what form that involvement will take.

His uncertainty resonates with many other religious freshmen on campus. Though 56 percent of students identified as religious, only 32 percent of them reported plans to join a faith-based organization on campus. Many students interviewed said they plan to attend services without participating actively in faith-based communities.

Still, for some students, involvement is a certainty, though responses varied across religions. Of the 169 students who identify as Protestant, 68 said they plan to be involved in a Christian student group; 35 percent of Muslim students said the same for the relevant Yale organizations. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of Hindu students and no Buddhist students indicated such an interest.

In comparison, each of Yale’s cultural centers drew high interest from ethnic students within the freshman class: 71 percent of all self-identified minority students said they planned to have some engagement withtheir respective cultural house.

Seventy-seven percent of African-American survey respondents plan to get involved with the Afro-American Cultural Center, while 51 percent of Asian students expressed interest in the Asian American Cultural Center and 45 percent of Hispanic students plan to be a part of La Casa’s community. Four of 15 Native American respondents said they planned to get involved in the Native American Cultural Center.

Some students have already taken steps in this direction. Nicole Chavez ’19, who is Hispanic, said she knew she wanted to be involved with La Casa before many of her classmates had even set foot in the center’s facility. During her time at the pre-orientation program Cultural Connections, Chavez learned about the cultural centers’ difficulties with funding and physical space.

“Within a few years, a lot of substantial change will be going on with the new heads being appointed, and with the focus students put on it last year,” Chavez said. “It’s definitely something I want to be a part of.”

Question: What type(s) of extracurricular group(s) do you plan to join? Please select all that apply.

(Amanda Mei)

FORGING DIFFERENT PATHS

In response to a News survey question about what made them most anxious about coming to Yale, one freshman simply replied “loneliness.”

The student, a Protestant Christian, was, in fact, not alone in feeling this way. Religious students were more likely to say they felt anxious about their social experiences at Yale, with many identifying the party scene as a point of concern, specifically citing a general incompatibility between faith and the typical pillars of a college party scene: sex, drugs and alcohol.

Students interested in engaging with a religious group at Yale already demonstrated that their views may differ from the rest of their class. Seventy-eight percent of freshmen interested in joining a religious organization said they have not ever had sex, compared to 64 percent across the whole class. In terms of anticipating a sexual relationship, the divide continues. Forty-three percent of students interested in joining a religious organization on campus said they do not anticipate having sexual intercourse at all in college, with an additional 24 percent saying they were unsure. In contrast, 54 percent of total respondents said they anticipate having sex over the next four years.

But within the religious demographic of 2019, there existed some discrepancies among different faiths. Jewish students, for example, said they anticipate having sexual intercourse in college at a higher rate than any other religious group on campus, with 76 percent of the Jewish freshmen class responding affirmatively. Only two percent said they definitely do not anticipate doing so. Conversely, Muslim and Hindu students were more likely to say they were going to abstain from sex during college, at 55 and 54 percent. Christian denominations were collectively the most uncertain: 30 percent said they were “unsure” as to whether or not they would have sexual intercourse in college — the highest such rate for any demographic.

While religious students were less likely to anticipate having a sexual experience in college, they were just as likely as the rest of their class to anticipate being in a romantic relationship. However, these relationships were most likely to be heterosexual. Only eight percent of the incoming Christian class did not identify as heterosexual, compared to 20 percent of the agnostic, atheist or non-religious students.

Politically, 87 percent of those who said they were “very conservative” also identified as Christian. “Somewhat liberal” students — the largest political contingent within the class — showed no distinct affiliation to any one religious group.

In addition to fostering diversity within the freshman class, these important cultural distinctions appear to set certain freshmen on different paths throughout Yale.

Credits

By Stephanie Addenbrooke
and Emma Platoff
Graphics by Amanda Mei
Photo by Ken Yanagisawa

Powered by

About the series

On Aug. 12, the News sent all incoming freshmen a survey with questions running the gamut from family life to post-graduate plans. This is a four-part series on the results.

© 2014 Yale Daily News


About Us

Advertise

Subscribe

2019 by the numbers:
First impressions

By Stephanie Addenbrooke
and Emma Platoff
Graphics by Aparna Nathan
Photo by Ken Yanagisawa
Published on August 28, 2015

Moving trucks and minivans crowding Elm Street, sweaty upperclassmen in colorful t-shirts, tearful parents not yet ready to let go — such are the hallmarks of freshman move-in. Today, hundreds of new undergraduates will begin their four years at Yale. They were carefully chosen from a pool of 30,227 applicants in the second-most competitive admissions cycle Yale has ever seen.

To get a sense of their backgrounds and views and expectations of Yale, the News distributed a comprehensive survey to the members of the class of 2019. Eight-hundred fifty-three responded. The results are presented here.

Editor's Note on the freshman survey: On Aug. 12, the News sent to every member of the Class of 2019 a survey comprising questions on family life, post-graduate plans and everything in between. The results of this survey will be published in a four-part series beginning today, with subsequent stories illustrating the ways in which different backgrounds color students’ perceptions of how the next four years will unfold.

THE BASICS

Many students said they were looking forward to being part of a diverse student body at Yale, both in terms of upbringing and interests.

Five-hundred eighteen freshmen identified as Caucasian, 112 of which also indicated a second ethnicity. Asian-American and East Asian students made up the second largest group, totaling 175 students, with 14 identifying as mixed race.

The freshman class also demonstrated socioeconomic diversity. One-hundred ten students reported coming from households with a combined income level of below $40,000 per year. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 95 students reported having household incomes of more than $500,000 annually. Half of the respondents receive no financial aid from Yale, while one-fifth receive more than 90 percent aid — for the most part, these students were satisfied with their award. Still, 62 of the 420 students receiving aid were unsatisfied, with one such respondent calling the University “stingy” with award packages. Eight percent of students ranked relative affordability as the most important factor in their decision to matriculate to Yale.

More than half of respondents attended a public, non-charter high school, with 42 percent attending a private school. No respondents were homeschooled in high school.

In keeping with the rest of the Yale student body, members of the class of 2019 tended toward the left end of the political spectrum. Sixty-six percent of responding freshmen described their views as either “very” or “somewhat liberal,” with only 12 percent identifying as “very” or “somewhat conservative.” The remaining 184 respondents identified as “moderate.”

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was by far the most popular presidential candidate among responding freshmen, garnering the support of 38 percent of the class’s votes. In comparison, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 and Donald Trump, the candidates currently leading most national polls for primary elections, received just 23 and 1 percent, respectively.

THE CLASSROOM AND BEYOND

The campus’s Gothic buildings and social atmosphere could not match the University’s world-class array of academic offerings in attracting freshmen to matriculate, according to survey results.

“Coming from an environment [that undervalued education], I am beyond excited to be learning in an environment so conducive to education itself,” one student wrote.

Eighty percent of the class said academics will take priority over extracurricular activities, with 31 percent stating that academics will be “significantly more important.” As was the case with the class of 2018, none of the respondents said that their social life would be “significantly more important” than their studies.

Yet, despite this prioritization of academics, 25 percent of the class said they feel unprepared for the workload, and the majority of respondents listed workload as their most pressing source of anxiety. Further, there appeared to be a stark divide between genders in this group, 80 percent of which was female.

One student wrote they were anxious about “not being able to stand out academically in a competitive environment,” a sentiment that many respondents echoed.

“I don’t think I am prepared to study alongside people who attended the best and most rigorous high schools in the world, and that is what makes me anxious about going to Yale,” another wrote.

What type(s) of extracurricular group(s) do you plan to join? Please select all that apply.

(Aparna Nathan, Production & Design Editor)

One in four incoming freshmen revealed that they had cheated in some way during their respective high school career. Three percent of students said they had taken a drug to enhance academic performance during the same period.

Outside the classroom, community service organizations drew the most interest from freshmen, followed by athletics and performing arts. Only 14 percent of the class indicated an interest in Greek life, comparable to the statistics within the larger student body.

Twenty-nine percent of students said they have never consumed alcohol, compared to the 17 percent who said they drink regularly. All of the students who have never consumed alcohol said they have also never taken recreational drugs, including marijuana. Overall, only 25 percent of the class said they have used drugs in the past.

Although roughly two-thirds of the class said they have never had sexual intercourse, 40 percent of these students said they anticipate having sex before they graduate.

Seventy-four percent of the incoming class are currently single, 81 percent of whom said they anticipate being in a romantic relationship while at Yale.

Challenging the old refrain of “One in four, maybe more,” only 5 percent and 7 percent of respondents identified as homosexual or bisexual, respectively.

Do you have any experience with alcohol, drugs or sexual intercourse?

(Aparna Nathan, Production & Design Editor)

ON THE ISSUES

Over the past year, Yale has come under wide scrutiny for its financial aid, sexual misconduct and mental health policies; however, when asked about these campus issues, most incoming freshmen said they did not feel informed enough to express an opinion.

Students felt particularly uninformed on issues of sexual misconduct and mental health policy, with 73 and 77 percent, respectively.

But of the 230 students who reportedly did feel sufficiently informed on the topic of sexual misconduct, 155 described the University’s policies as either “highly effective” or “generally effective,” and only nine considered the policies “highly ineffective.”

Fifty percent of the incoming class said they do not think that students receiving financial aid should be expected to work a paid, part-time job as part of their student contribution requirement, compared to 27 percent who agreed with current campus policy that expects students to work to fill their financial aid package.

2020 — Chronicling Ivy League
recruitment: The summer months

By Maya Sweedler
Published on April 24, 2015

At 6:30 a.m. on April 15, 2015, the Hartmanns’ phone rang. It was the first day of the NCAA’s spring evaluation period, and Princeton University wanted to be the first to call defensive end Carter Hartmann, a current junior at Mission Viejo High School in Southern California.

They were indeed the first.

“Harvard called me at 3 [p.m.] and they’re like, ‘Hey, we just wanted to be the first people to call you. We are the first, aren’t we?’” Hartmann said. “I had to tell them, ‘Yeah, Princeton called me at 6:30.’ It was pretty funny.”

Hartmann, however, has not yet spoken to Yale, the last of the three Ivy League schools that has expressed serious interest in him, during this spring evaluation period. He said his parents will be speaking with head coach Tony Reno sometime before the period ends on May 31.

Not every high school football player is woken up by a call from a Division I university. As football recruiting for the class of 2020 approaches its peak, high school athletes around the country are seeking the one thing that can get them that phone call: exposure.

With classes out and football season quickly approaching, the summer between a player’s junior and senior years can set the tone for his recruitment process. Data derived from summer camps, combines and preliminary academic assessments helps Ivy League coaches to whittle down the prospect pool, and although NCAA restrictions limit the contact between student-athletes and coaches, there is increased communication as the deadline for official visits approaches.

“At Yale we need to cast a wide scope because we’re looking for students that we can predict … [will] get through the application process academically, student-athletes that can play Division I football.”

—Tony Reno, Head Coach of Yale Football

THE REGULATION OF RECRUITMENT

Since its inception in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, the National College Athletic Association has served as the ultimate authority on college athletics. As the number of student-athletes has swelled, the NCAA has grown right alongside it, as have the rules and regulations it creates.

Today, Division I football recruiting is an almost scientifically precise process. Each year, the NCAA puts out a colored calendar demarcating the four different types of recruitment periods: the quiet period, in which prospects can unofficially visit schools and communicate with coaches via written or electronic methods; the evaluation period, in which off-campus interactions between prospects and students are forbidden but coaches may visit high schools and prospects may visit colleges; the contact period, in which coaches and prospects may communicate and visit anywhere, provided a coach does not visit a high school more than once in one week; and the dead period, in which only written or electronic communication is permitted.

In addition to abiding by the NCAA standards, schools in the Ivy League adhere to further standards set forth by the Ivy Group Agreement.

The first agreement, signed in 1945 and restricted to football, affirmed the decision to uphold the same eligibility rules and academic standards and to dispense only need-based financial aid, not athletic scholarships. By extending the agreement to all sports in 1954, the Ivy League was formally created.

Since then, Ivy League football has been regulated separately from all other sports. The football programs operate under a slightly different set of rules, as the league allows 120 students over four years to matriculate with support from the football coach, according to Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, deputy executive director of the Ivy League.

“All other sports are lumped together,” Campbell-McGovern said. “Every institution makes their own decisions about how they’ll further limit, or how they’ll allocate the number of slots that they have. They’re bound more by institutional limits.”

Of course, that does not mean a perfect 30 football players matriculate — or are even admitted — to Yale in any given year, according to Undergraduate Dean of Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan. Campbell-McGovern noted that there is a much larger pool of students who are contacted by, and subsequently communicate with the football programs.

Reno explained that due to the school’s high academic standards, the football program is forced to start looking early and cast a wide net.

“We’ll start gathering information on recruits or potential prospects in February of their junior year,” Reno said. “As you can imagine, at Yale we need to cast a wide scope because we’re looking for students that we can predict … [will] get through the application process academically, student-athletes that can play Division I football.”

Sometimes it falls to the student-athlete to put him or herself on a school’s radar. Gathering information often begins with players or coaches reaching out to recruitment coordinators.

Highlight tapes, unofficial transcripts and conversations with high school coaches allow the football staff to sketch a basic profile for each player.

“What we do is we get recommendations from high school coaches and we get transcripts from the student-athletes,” Reno said. “They’ll give us unofficial transcripts and we’ll take a look at them and see where they are, how well they’re doing in class, their strength of schedule and the classes they’re taking.”

Per NCAA standards, prospects are permitted to visit a school unofficially as many times as they like and whenever they like, provided that there is no contact with a coach if the visit falls during a dead period. Official visits, which the universities pay for, do not begin until Sept. 1 of a student-athlete’s senior year. There is a limit of five for each prospect, and it is up to his or her discretion to choose which schools to visit.

In the meantime, summer camps provide another method of evaluating players.

Koby Quansah

(courtesy of Koby Quansah)

ROLE OF SUMMER CAMPS

Yale hosts eight one-day prospect camps throughout the summer to help student-athletes attract attention. According to Reno, these summer camps are valuable because they allow the staff to evaluate personal characteristics.

“I think for us, it’s a way to see how players work, how they take coaching, how they react when the chips are down and they’ve made some mistakes,” Reno said. “Are they able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and go to the next play? Those are all very important things. For me, the intangibles are very important: how they carry themselves, how they treat others. What we’re looking for are Yale football players, guys who look like they’re going to live by our core values and what we believe in.”

High school coaches, however, were more ambivalent when it comes to the importance of summer camps.

“The name of the game is exposure,” said Jason Martinez, the head coach at Kingswood-Oxford High School in West Hartford, Conn. “You got to get your name out there. You got to go out there [and] go to camps. You can’t expect, as a blue chip kid, to get recognized. Some kids choose to not go to camps and [they] don’t get recognized because they’re not putting themselves out there.”

Martinez coaches Koby Quansah, a linebacker who began receiving calls from coaches in his sophomore year of high school. Now finishing up his junior year, Quansah said he might not attend summer camps this year because he has already done so and earned scholarship offers. Instead, he will relax and give his body some rest.

According to Martinez, this strategy works for certain athletes. For players with 20-plus offers like Quansah, Martinez explained, there is not much to do with the summer.

“He’s done all the work already,” Martinez said. “A lot of these camps are money camps, and you’re fighting for exposure and twisting in line to get reps. I’m not sure that’s where Koby is right now. I think he’s above that.”

Much like Quansah, Hartmann has already turned heads. He is currently sitting on three preliminary Ivy offers of support as well as one Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offer. The defensive end is also talking to two other FBS schools, Vanderbilt and Boise State. While he is considering attending Stanford’s football camp on June 20, he will participate in Mission Viejo’s varsity football summer training regimen.

That plan was deemed acceptable by Bob Johnson, Hartmann’s head coach at Mission Viejo High School.

“His potential off the field, in the classroom, is off the charts,” Johnson said of Hartmann. “It comes easy to him. He’s the brightest football player I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been around a long time.”

Summer camps are one of several methods of attracting attention. While Hartmann went the traditional route of sending his highlight tape, other recruits succeeded in catching Reno’s eye with performances at various combines.

Jacob Morgenstern

(courtesy of Joyce Andersen)

COMBINES

A series of timed drills, tests and exercises, football combines offer an empirical standard by which to evaluate players. Their results can factor into national rankings, which in turn generate the exposure necessary to attract Division I attention.

Last Sunday, Quansah participated in the invite-only Rivals100 camp in central New Jersey, walking away with the top linebacker award. He is now considered a four-star recruit: Rivals.com ranks him as the best inside linebacker in Connecticut and the sixth-best in his class in the country.

In addition to 15 FBS offers, two preliminary Ivy offers of support and one FCS offer, Quansah has been talking to Stanford and Oregon, two perennial powerhouse Pac-12 football programs. His coach added that Stanford visited Kingswood-Oxford on April 23 to see Quansah.

During that visit, the Cardinal linebacker coach told him that Stanford wanted to make an offer, Quansah said. However, since Quansah was informed that the school recruits at a slower pace than many other schools, he will have to wait before receiving his offer.

“I don’t think this is common in the northeast,” Martinez said of west coast schools flying east, which Stanford did in both January and April. “I talked to the Stanford coaches who said I’m only here for Koby. So I don’t know how common it is that the west coast schools come over here, or the [Southeastern Conference] schools, I don’t know how common it is for them as well. But we’re fortunate for getting schools from all over the place.”

Damarea Crockett

(courtesy of Alex Hall)

Damarea Crockett, an Arkansas native and current high school junior, also benefitted immensely from his performance in a combine. At the Nike SPARQ combine on March 14, the running back earned the highest score in the country. Official combine results measured Crockett’s 40-yard dash at 4.69 seconds, his shuttle run at 4.00 seconds and his vertical jump at 38.7 inches. For reference, running back Tyler Varga ’15, the Ivy League’s leading rusher last season, ran a 4.72 40-yard dash and had a 38.5-inch vertical jump at his pro day on March 31.

“I was getting approached more [after the combine]. I was getting more calls, I was getting more mail,” Crockett said. “That’s when I began to think about everything more and more.”

His coach at Little Rock Christian Academy, Jeff Weaver, said that while Crockett was already attracting attention before the combine, his phone began ringing from all over the country afterwards.

With seven FBS offers, including ones from Arkansas State, Vanderbilt and Colorado State, Crockett is going to have a tough decision to make, Weaver said.

“Damarea can go as high as it can go, honestly,” Weaver said. “He is the strongest overall player on our team, even as a running back. He’s a guy that’s getting lots of offers and you know, he’s a smart guy. He’s going to be eligible for everybody.”

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENTS

Eligibility is a key factor in Yale’s football recruiting process. The admissions criteria for Ivy League athletes, listed on the Ivy League website, make it clear that academic standards must be met before athletic ability is taken into consideration. Student-athletes know that, to get a shot at an Ivy League school, they must have an excellent academic record.

So when two-way player Jacob Morgenstern, then a sophomore at Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York, was given the opportunity to transfer to St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Conn., he took it.

“I think it’s one of the best academic institutions in the nation,” Morgenstern said. “The academics speak for itself. It’s an incredible school with some incredible people who’ve done some crazy things.”

Morgenstern currently has offers of support from coaches at both Harvard and Yale, the latter of which he has visited twice this year. The coaches’ support can only come into play after Oct. 1, when the admissions committee is permitted to begin reviewing completed applications.

But these offers of support are more tenuous than scholarship offers extended by any other Football Bowl Subdivision or Football Championship Subdivision team. Unlike other Division I schools, Ivy League schools do not provide athletic scholarships and maintain much more rigid academic standards.

Therefore, coaches noted, many academically ineligible prospects find out that their applications will not be supported by an Ivy League school earlier than a prospect being recruited by another Division I school.

“Another school might just drag its feet and you might think you have a shot, but you really don’t,” Martinez said. “But the Ivy League [schools], I’ve noticed, are pretty much upfront with the kids. They’ll say, hey listen, your GPA is not where it should be, or your test scores won’t allow you to get in here … They’re not stringing them along, and I don’t think anybody wants to be strung along or given false hope. Sometimes it’s tough. But they’re honest.”

This honesty pervades public recruiting information.

The Ivy League explicitly states online that “a ‘verbal commitment’ by a coach is not an offer of admission, as only the admissions office has that authority. An Ivy League coach can only commit his or her support in the admissions process.”

Before committing support, a coach can ask for a preliminary assessment of a prospect. According to the Ivy League, the admissions office may review the student-athlete’s academic credentials beginning July 1, including standardized test scores and high school transcripts. It then crafts an initial assessment, which may be shared with the prospect. But even if it is positive, this preliminary assessment in no way guarantees acceptance.

Reno said he will sometimes request these early assessments from the admissions office during the summer.

“Nothing is set in stone, they just take a look at things,” Reno said. “For us, it’s much more about looking at transcripts and saying, guys, these are some things we think you need to work on, whether it be your SAT scores or your ACT scores or your classes in general, just things that can make the application stronger.”

Hartmann, for example, spoke to Harvard on April 15. The school knew from Hartmann’s unofficial transcript that the defensive end had a 5.0 GPA his first semester of junior year.

But that is only one factor. Even without the official preliminary assessment, Harvard advised him to continue retaking the SAT.

“I got an 1890 and [Harvard] said, ‘Okay yeah, you’ll get into this school.’ But they asked me to keep taking the test because if I score higher then they can recruit someone that scored lower,” Hartmann said.

Hartmann has the entire fall to improve his score, as football operates on a comparatively late recruiting schedule, according to both Reno and Quinlan.

“The Ivy League [schools], I’ve noticed, are pretty much upfront with the kids… Sometimes it’s tough. But they’re honest.”

—Jason Martinez, Head Coach of Kingswood-Oxford High School football

Reno said the recruiting process comes to a completion when student-athletes are prepared to apply and the coaching staff is ready to move forward with them to support applications. While the date varies, Yale sometimes will not complete the entering class until the February before the student-athletes matriculate.

This is mostly because the fall is a key element to a football player’s recruitment. Throughout the prospect’s senior season, the coaching staff keeps tabs on the player. His senior year performance is a helpful benchmark in determining his ability to play at the next level, Reno said.

“A lot of it depends on senior film,” Reno said. “We look deeply into their senior film. We do that with every player … What you’re looking at is how they’ve grown from their junior film to their senior film. Have they made improvements? Have the questions you had on their junior film been answered on their senior film?”

Many of these improvements come out of the work athletes put in over the summer, both on and off the field. Although many rising seniors have not yet begun the college application process, it is well underway for these four recruits.

Greg Cameron contributed reporting.

2020 — Chronicling Ivy League
recruitment: Meet the recruits

By Maya Sweedler
Published on April 23, 2015

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any college football team, and in his first three years as Yale’s head coach, Tony Reno has embraced this philosophy. He has lured high-profile transfers away from larger football programs, such as incoming wide receiver Bo Hines from North Carolina State and quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 from Clemson. He has also drawn players from lesser-known schools, like Tyler Varga ’15 — the Ivy League’s top rusher in the 2014 season — from Western Ontario.

Equally effective is recruiting players directly from high school. Recently, Reno has succeeded in attracting highly-ranked recruits away from the Big Ten, Pac-12, Southeastern Conference and other top-tier NCAA Division I leagues. Players such as current commit Daniel James, Jon Bezney ’18, Mason Friedline ’17 and Victor Egu ’17 turned down schools ranging from Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Wisconsin to UC Berkeley, Oregon and Michigan State in favor of Yale.

But with the class of 2019 arriving for preseason camp in four months, Reno and his staff have already started looking beyond the incoming class. For months now, the team has been receiving tapes from potential members of the class of 2020. Coaches have put together a database for each incoming class, compiling tapes and statistics in an attempt to whittle down the number of prospective athletes before hitting the road in December to evaluate players in person.

Given Yale’s high academic standards, however, this process is difficult due to the uncertainty of the high schoolers’ final academic standing. Many of the athletes Yale is eyeing are rising juniors and have not yet taken standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT, just one among a portfolio of standards Yale uses in admissions decisions. 

“We have to project kids academically,” coach Steven Vashel said at the Yale Pro Day in March. “We offer guys, get to know them and try to get them here on campus. Then the campus sells itself.”

Thus far, Reno and his staff have extended preliminary offers supporting the applications of athletes from all around the country. These players — including the following four students — are current juniors in high school, and though they will not matriculate until the fall of 2016, the college process is already well underway for them.

CARTER HARTMANN

Hailing from Mission Viejo High School, a football powerhouse in Southern California, defensive end Carter Hartmann has the football skills to match his school’s pedigree.

The youngest of four boys, he began playing tackle football when he was eight years old. One of his brothers played football for Division III school Tufts, and another received offers for basketball, though he ultimately turned them down to attend Brigham Young University.

Hartmann received offers from BYU, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.

Though the cost of flying to the east coast and attending summer camps is high, Hartmann said he intends to visit the universities. Beginning Sept. 1 of his senior year, he is allowed to make official visits — trips that the schools will cover. He is currently on an unofficial trip to BYU, a school with a special connection to Hartmann. Several members of his family have attended, so Hartmann grew up watching the football team and cheering on the Cougars.

Although he does not yet know what he wants to study, Hartmann knows he wants a school that prioritizes academics. He is currently ranked in the 99th percentile of his high school class, according to his recruiting tape.

“Academics is definitely going to be the biggest [part of the] decision, so I just contacted the Ivy League [schools] on my own,” he said. “I found their email and emailed them my film.”

Deceptively quick, the 6’3”, 255-pound Hartmann has a highlight tape that features his abilities to get off the line swiftly and to plug gaps at a moment’s notice.

At Mission Viejo, which currently boasts six active NFL players among its alumni, football is “intense.” Three of the 14 coaches listed on the roster played in the NFL, including Hartmann’s defensive line coach Mike Piel, who played defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams for four seasons.

The sport is essentially a year-round commitment, as the postseason ends in December and offseason training begins in January. Even in March, Hartmann said he attends two-and-a-half hours of practice every day.

But despite the demands, Hartmann is committed to playing football in college.

“There’s really nothing like it,” Hartmann said. “It’s the ultimate test of how bad you want something and skill and hard work. You represent your city, you represent your family and it’s a way to prove yourself. And it’s a good way to spend a Friday night, with everyone watching you.”

KOBY QUANSAH

Manchester, Connecticut native Koby Quansah, a running back/linebacker at Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford, participates in an equally intense offseason training regimen.

In addition to seven-on-seven drills twice a week, his football program offers lifting and yoga classes. Football’s time commitment was so great that Quansah was unable to play basketball in the winter.

“At first, [training] was a one-dimensional thing, with just bench presses or squats or something,” Quansah said. “But the last couple years, we’ve switched it up to where we’re doing full-body workouts. Our younger coaches got their workouts from college, and they taught us.”

But thanks to such hard-core training, the 6’1”, 212-pound junior is a three-star recruit currently sitting on offers from 19 schools, including Harvard, Duke, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan.

As of right now, Quansah said, there are no frontrunners.

“I’d say I’m giving everyone the same opportunity they’re giving me,” he said. “A lot more schools should be coming up in the spring, so I haven’t set up any official visits. We only get five visits, so I’m going to have to choose.”

He will undoubtedly have many options from which to choose: According to 247sports.com, Quansah is the best outside linebacker in Connecticut and the 28th-best in the nation.

This past season, Quansah led his conference in tackles, racking up 122 in just eight games. He also ran for 1,245 yards on 120 carries, adding 18 touchdowns to his list of accomplishments. His dominance on both sides of the ball did not go unnoticed, as he was named first-team All-New England.

Coming from an athletic family, where the sport of choice was soccer, Quansah began playing football in sixth grade. It was not until four years later that he considered playing at the next level.

“I remember watching my first college football game,” Quansah said. “It was Ohio State versus Michigan, and at that point I fell in love with the game a little bit. I wasn’t even into the whole recruiting world until going into sophomore year.”

Now, Quansah has been thrown into this world. Though he has already attended several camps, he said he plans to participate in the Rivals100 football camp and might attend summer camps at Yale, Duke and Boston College.

The potential sociology or social sciences major has not yet decided if he wants to play in the NFL.

“I’m not looking to get there right away, but if the opportunity comes, I’m going to take it,” Quansah said. “But the goal isn’t just to get there. Mainly it’s using college football to go to school and get a good education.”

JACOB MORGENSTERN

On Oct. 11, 2014, Quansah and the Kingswood-Oxford Wyverns traveled to New Canaan, Connecticut to play St. Luke’s High School. Also playing in that game was fellow Yale recruit Jacob Morgenstern, a multipurpose player who had recently arrived at St. Luke’s.

The players had talked on Twitter prior to the game, and were able to meet up both before and after the game, a 48–26 Wyvern win.

Yet prior to this season, Quansah would have had no way of meeting Morgenstern. The 6’4”, 210-pound Morgenstern transferred this season from Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York, to St. Luke’s after his sophomore year.

Morgenstern broke his hand during his final season at Ketcham, and as a result, he only played three games healthy.

“At that time I was like, ‘I’m never going to play in college, nobody’s going to see my tape, it wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t long enough,’ I only played three games healthy and I figured that was it,” Morgenstern said.

Then a recruiting coordinator from St. Luke’s reached out. Ultimately, Morgenstern chose to leave his friends and family behind and move in with a host family so he could attend the prep school. Though it was a difficult decision, Morgenstern said his visit convinced him that the opportunities St. Luke’s would afford him were too good to pass up. Since he arrived at St. Luke’s, his recruiting has “blown up.”

St. Luke’s has benefitted immensely from Morgenstern’s contributions on the field. In nine games, Morgenstern scored 18 total touchdowns, gained 1,064 net yards, forced three fumbles, made five interceptions and returned two punts for touchdowns.

These numbers have turned heads in both the SEC and the Big Ten. Morgenstern, who also is drawing interest for baseball, has football offers from 13 schools, including Clemson, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt. Though Yale has not offered him a spot on the baseball team, Morgenstern said Reno would allow him to play both sports at Yale.

Like Hartmann, Morgenstern cited academics as a key factor in his ultimate decision.

“First and foremost, of course, is the education I can get at these programs,” he said. “That’s very important to me. What they offer in football is also an important piece. Location also comes into it … Cost can also be a factor in the end, so you know, all those things come together and drive my decision.”

He also acknowledged the important role that family will play in his choice. Morgenstern’s older brother Aaron played football at Colgate for two seasons, so his family is familiar with the ins-and-outs of the recruiting process.

Living so close to New Haven, Morgenstern has greater access to Yale than many other recruits. He was able to attend this year’s Yale-Princeton game and dropped by campus in March.

Morgenstern hopes to follow in the path of running back Tyler Varga ’15, whom Morgenstern called a “tank” after watching him play against Princeton.

“If I’m good enough, a further career in football, maybe in the NFL, would definitely be something to think about,” Morgenstern said. “I’m really trying to see where that goes. If that doesn’t work out, I was thinking about a career in sports medicine, that’s something I’ve looked into.”

DAMAREA CROCKETT

Varga’s potential professional career will also be of interest to the top running back in Arkansas, Damarea Crockett, a recruit with pro aspirations.

Crockett, listed as 6’1” and 215 pounds, is also one of the top 25 running backs in the entire country, according to Rivals.com.

Crockett’s school, Little Rock Christian Academy, is a mid-sized private parochial school technically classified as a 4A school. However, its football program is so strong that for the past three seasons, the Warriors have played up a division. Although the school fronts a small 60-player team, Little Rock Christian was able to make the 5A playoffs last season for the first time since 2005.

But despite making it over the hump, Crockett has his sights set higher.

“I’m looking forward to having a great season,” Crockett said of his upcoming senior year. “We have a lot of returning players and I feel like we can win the state championship this year.”

As a junior at Little Rock Christian, Crockett earned 1,250 rushing yards, averaging 9.4 yards per carry. In addition, he runs an eye-popping 4.42 second 40-yard dash.

His achievements on the field have not gone unnoticed. Crockett has offers from eight schools, including Vanderbilt, Boise State and Arkansas State.

“I’m not really leaning towards anybody right now,” he said. “I’ll start narrowing down and showing my favorites as we get deeper into the summer, just to see who comes along as we go through the summer.”

While he acknowledged things could change, Crockett said he intends to attend football camps at Ole Miss, the University of Missouri and the University of Memphis.

But his top priority right now is to stay above the process. Mentioning advice provided by his current football coach, Crockett said he knows he must keep his grades up, stay out of trouble and be a good sport on and off the field.

Luckily, he has a strong support system at home.

“They encourage me a lot,” Crockett said of his parents. “They don’t put too much pressure on me about going to any school. They just leave it up to me and where I want to go.”

Clarification: April 9

This article has been revised to clarify the meaning of an “offer” Yale extends to high school athletes. Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships, and any such offers from Ivy League programs are in fact offers to support a student’s application for admission should the student meet the school’s academic guidelines.

Harassment at SAE
and its fallout

by Nicole Narea, Staff Reporter
Published on April 16, 2015

The pledges of Yale University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, or SAE, are required to wear a uniform of a blazer, button-down and tie — conspicuous garb for teenagers on a college campus, though they wear it proudly. The night of Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, was no exception.

Twenty-two men clamored into the fraternity’s off-campus house at 35 High St. The inside was dark. The pledges were greeted by the boisterous shouts of roughly 30 older members sitting on couches lined against the walls, decorated with framed photo composites of past fraternity classes dating back decades. Soon, the new pledge class’s yearbook-worthy smiles would hang beside them. But first, they had to undergo initiation, their inaugural act as SAE brothers.

Traditionally, the SAE president recounts fraternity lore. Pledges recite an oath. Two senior “chaplains,” elected by their brothers for their entertainment value, give a presentation dressed in ridiculous clothes. The presentation is usually a mythological story about Minerva, the Roman goddess and patron saint of SAE, and the dirty details of her sexual encounters. It is lewd, but tongue-in-cheek in spirit.

For the spring 2014 pledge class, however, the chaplains typed a speech about a different set of characters, who were not fictional. Among them was Zoe, a 20-year-old Yale sophomore they identified by name, but whose name has been changed for this story in an effort to protect her identity. In the six months before the ceremony, Zoe had engaged in sexual acts with five members of the fraternity — including the two chaplains. The title of the speech, as it has come to be known and discussed around campus, used her name in association with “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the best-selling novel-turned-film focusing on a sadomasochistic relationship.

These events were described to the News by two individuals who were present and by a third to whom the activities were later recounted in detail. The SAE brothers cited in this story spoke under the condition of anonymity. Aspects of the ceremony were also corroborated by documents pertaining to a University investigation that examined the events of that evening and its aftermath.

These documents — as well as interviews with Zoe and several SAE brothers and the statements of University administrators who dealt with the case — show how members of a Yale fraternity made a female classmate and her sexual experiences the butt of a public joke consecrating membership in their ranks. Further, they outline the victim’s months long battle to get the University to hold the fraternity accountable in a public forum, to announce to students what had been a private conclusion of a confidential disciplinary proceeding about a matter that had already leaked into the campus rumor mill.

When the University did make an announcement, a full year after the event itself, it offered an incomplete picture of the case, foregrounding the fraternity’s positive reforms and casting the incident as a teaching moment for the campus. What was touted by the University as evidence of its transparent approach to handling sexual misconduct was rather the result of Zoe’s protracted effort to move Yale to action. When Yale did act publicly, it shut her out of the process altogether.

Timeline: From SAE initiation to UWC case

THE ROAST

The Speech

The fact-finder’s report describes the chaplains’ remarks

Zoe’s relationships with the five SAE brothers described in the speech occurred from September 2013 to the following February. Her involvement with two of the men lasted from September to December, and the other three occurred in quick succession in January. She described these encounters as “consensual, casual relations.”

Following her involvement with the men, Zoe commented on some of their sexual performances in conversation with the fraternity president, a junior at the time. He was one of the five fraternity brothers with whom she had sexual relations, but she had come to regard him as a friend. Zoe said she felt they had come to trust each other. As they were both sharing details about their sex lives over the course of multiple conversations, Zoe told him that one brother climaxed quickly, another was enthusiastic about giving oral sex and a third enjoyed cuddling. He later passed along those comments to the group of the other four brothers, according to the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct panel’s report.

Zoe’s comments spread “like wildfire,” one of the chaplains later told an independent factfinder assigned to investigate the incident. “She had provided intimate and private details about these encounters to others,” he wrote in a statement to the UWC last April. “Our encounters had become public knowledge to many in the Yale community.” Embarrassed that multiple peers had teased them about their sexual performances, the chaplains decided to address the comments publicly. Their roast became their platform.

Inside the fraternity house, the chaplains spoke in mock Spanish and Arabic accents, introducing Zoe as someone who had engaged in sexual relations with five members of the fraternity. The names of those members were listed, followed by description of their sexual performances based on the comments allegedly made by Zoe. Some of the comments mentioned in the speech were fabricated, according to Zoe, including remarks about the pubic hair of one brother.

Though the brothers had previously gossiped about her ratings, many of the freshman pledges had not heard her name before, according to SAE brothers present. Meanwhile, some of the older members who knew her sat in the back, presiding over the soon-to-be new brothers lined up in the middle of the room. No one interrupted.

The speech was a “ridiculous five minutes,” the SAE president told the fact-finder. By the end of the night, SAE had initiated 22 new members.

 

THE RUMORS

At Box 63

The fact-finder's report describes ensuing sexual harassment.

Zoe went to Box 63 with some friends on the Friday night after initiation. It was Valentine’s Day. Undergraduates flooded the dark dance floor, clustering around the bar and waving credit cards to pay for beer and hard liquor served in plastic cups. Amid the crowd, a freshman SAE pledge slipped his arm around Zoe and went in for a kiss. According to the UWC’s report, she pushed him away, but he continued flirting: “I know you like SAE boys.”

Zoe withdrew from his embrace and rejoined her friends on the dance floor. But another group of young men approached her, dancing close to her and trying to touch her. “We know you like SAE boys,” at least one of them said before an older member of SAE told them to back off. She had never indicated interest in them.

Zoe was never meant to find out why she was suddenly attracting so much attention — chapter rituals are supposed to be secret. But, on Feb. 24, her roommate sat down on her bed to recount the rumors that had been swirling around campus — about her sex life and its role in the SAE initiation.

In that moment, however, Zoe did not grasp how those rumors would consume her life at Yale over the next year.

On Feb. 14, Zoe went to Box 63 on Elm Street. Men approached her, saying, 'We know you like SAE boys. (Ken Yanagisawa, Photography Editor)

Zoe and the SAE president met at Wall Street Pizza in the wake of the initiation. (Julia Henry)

On Feb. 26, Zoe texted the SAE president to ask to meet with him. At Wall Street Pizza, he recounted what occurred at the initiation. He had no role in the creation of the speech, nor did he approve it in advance, he told her. He downplayed its contents, saying the remarks about her were brief. The purpose of the speech was to poke fun at the brothers and be self-deprecating, not to publicly shame her, he said — reasoning that the chaplains later echoed in conversations with her.

The discussion inside the pizza joint turned to the president’s advice for her. When Zoe told him that her friends had urged her to alert University officials, the president warned her to lay low: bringing the event to the administration’s attention would hurt her already damaged reputation, as well as that of the fraternity. So, too, would continuing to drink and hook up tarnish her image on campus. She could expect phone calls for hookups in the middle of the night, but none to ask her out on a date, he told her. “I gave her my honest opinion and said that I thought that this would not be the best course of action,” the president wrote about the conversation in a statement to the UWC last April. “I did this in good faith, acting as a friend to whom she had come for advice … I in no way intended to threaten her.”

It was after this conversation that Zoe realized she had lost control of the situation.

“If I had found out about these boys talking about me and stuff that they had done with me and things that I had allegedly said about them in the comfort of their own homes, I would not have been surprised,’” she said. “Of course they’re going to talk about me. Girls talk about this all the time. Guys talk about this all the time. That in itself would not have bothered me.” The fact that this was an official initiation event in front of almost two dozen freshman boys, as well as many male classmates she considered friends, was what scared her.

Zoe struggled with the decision to file a complaint. She spoke with her sisters, several of her close friends and the dean of her residential college. “It occupied my mind, every single minute of the day,” she said. She suddenly had the feeling that everyone knew who she was and that they were talking about her. She was simultaneously disturbed by what they knew, but also anxious that all the gossip had twisted the truth of what had actually occurred.

Throughout the spring, she was acutely aware of encounters with SAE members around campus, doing her best to avoid the five men featured in the speech, including one who was in her residential college. She stopped going to classes and going out on weekends. She lost sight of her academic work.

She lost sleep. Her appetite seemed to diminish. She texted her sister in March: “I either report it and get blacklisted by SAE and have a lot of people hate me, or I do nothing and let them get away with it and have people judge me for letting them take advantage of me. It’s such a lose lose.”

But finally, she resolved not to take the president’s advice. She would make a complaint.

 

THE INVESTIGATION

On April 21, roughly nine weeks after the initiation event, Zoe filed a formal complaint with the UWC against the fraternity president and the two chaplains. She cited not only the pledge event itself, but also what she considered to be ensuing sexual harassment — from her runin with fraternity members at Box 63 to her conversation with the SAE president at Wall Street Pizza following the initiation. The UWC formally charged the members on April 25.

Over the course of one week, the News sought comment from the three brothers, but they did not respond. Yale SAE as an organization declined to comment on the events of initiation to abide by a confidentiality agreement governing UWC proceedings.

According to UWC procedures, the committee responds to a formal complaint by requesting a report from an independent fact-finder and conducting at least one hearing. A five-person panel selected from within the UWC then judges whether or not the respondent has violated University policy. If the panel finds the respondent responsible, it prescribes punishments, which are subject to the approval and modifications of a “final decision-maker,” in this case the dean of Yale College.

Over the course of about a month, the independent factfinder, Miriam Berkman LAW ’82, interviewed Zoe, her friends, the three accused brothers and other members of the fraternity. As a supervisor at the Yale Child Study Center’s Trauma Section, Berkman is not formally independent from the University, as UWC regulations state factfinders must be.

Her investigation was impeded by SAE members’ repeated attempts to shape the account of the events she was seeking to retrace. According to the documents, the two chaplains claimed they had no electronic or paper access to the original speech to submit to Berkman, who then asked one of them to hand over his laptop to Yale Police to see if the document could be recovered from the hard drive. The chaplain replied that he could not do so — he was on a train to New York and flying out of the country the following morning.

The president also advised fraternity members about “sticking to the same story” when talking to Berkman to avoid putting the fraternity at risk, according to the panel report. He maintained that his comment was in reference to the chapter’s violation of SAE’s March 2014 national ban on pledging, but the UWC panel also wrote that it stemmed from an encouragement to lie to the fact-finder. The panel found that “fraternity members were likely to interpret [the president’s] statement as advice intended to dissuade them from being forthcoming and honest … as President of the fraternity, [he] failed to make it clear to members that they were free to cooperate with the UWC investigation and that doing so would not impact their standing in the fraternity.”

“Taken together, these passive refusals to participate in the UWC investigation process indicate at least that members of the fraternity are reluctant or afraid to talk about matters related to the activities of the fraternity,” Berkman stated in her June 11, 2014 report.

To encourage SAE members to cooperate with her investigation, the fact-finder did not disclose the identities of four freshmen interviewed who were present at the initiation event, deviating from standard UWC practice of naming witnesses in reports.

“I am trying to find a way for them to testify without being specifically named in my report and I believe I have worked this out with the Counsel’s office,” she wrote in an email to Zoe dated May 21, 2014. If a critical mass of brothers came forward, she said, “it will keep any one individual from being singled out for retribution” by other members of the fraternity. By contrast, a witness vouching for Zoe was named in the report, which left the individual vulnerable to retaliation by members of SAE, Zoe said. When contacted by the News, Berkman declined to comment on this disparity, citing confidentiality of UWC cases.

The UWC panel held the hearing on July 7. Zoe and the three brothers delivered pre-written opening statements, which were provided to the News. One of the chaplains said the speech was “meant to be self-deprecating and light-hearted” and conceded that he had since come to recognize the “unintended consequences of a thoughtless action.” The other chaplain emphasized his “acute sense that a very large group of people, many of whom I did not know, knew of these mortifying and embarrassing details of my sexual relationship with [Zoe]” and that the speech was a means of coping with his “mortification.”

In his statement before the panel, the president defended his conversation with Zoe at Wall Street Pizza, citing the “disconnect between [Zoe’s] impressions and my intentions” as a challenge to the accusation that he threatened her. He denied that he placed “any pressure on anyone to make a misleading statement” to the fact-finder. And further, he claimed she “bore some responsibility for fueling gossip about her private life by choosing to discuss details of her sexual encounters with friends.”

The panel's conclusion

The panel’s report is timestamped July 14. It concluded that the president and the two chaplains had violated Yale’s sexual misconduct policy by engaging in sexual harassment — the two chaplains in their speech and the president in his failure to stop it, as well as in his subsequent behavior. The president had impeded the investigation, and though he had not threatened Zoe, his remarks to her had the effect of perpetuating a hostile climate based on her gender, the panel found.

“In general, [the president’s] actions after the … event were focused on protecting … the fraternity and on shielding it from any responsibility for the speech in February rather than on stopping or repairing the damage caused by it,” the panel wrote in its report.

All three brothers were put on probation, which was noted on their academic records. The two chaplains, who graduated that spring, would receive their diplomas, but their probation would remain on their academic records. The panel recommended the president receive “training on leadership and sexual harassment.”

Further, the University was to implement sanctions against the fraternity as a whole. These included a ban on on-campus activities, a ban on communication via Yale email systems and bulletin boards and a prohibition on the use of the SAE name in connection with Yale for a period of two years, ending August 2016. The panel also recommended that the SAE national headquarters “take appropriate disciplinary action — beyond the action already taken by Yale — against the local chapter.”

The panel's recommendations

The three brothers, along with the fraternity, face sanctions

The president and one of the chaplains filed appeals with Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway, the final decision-maker in the case, protesting the UWC’s findings and requesting that he reduce the recommended sanctions. But Holloway endorsed the panel’s recommendations on July 22.

On July 30, Zoe was informed that the president had appealed Holloway’s decision to Provost Benjamin Polak. On Aug. 18, Polak rejected his appeal.

Meanwhile, SAE national headquarters did not receive notification of the incident until administrators contacted them in August 2014, roughly five months after Zoe filed the formal complaint, at which point they launched an investigation to learn more details about what may have happened, said Brandon Weghorst, a spokesman for SAE national. “We cannot validate what may have been said between various members or between members and nonmembers,” he wrote in an email. “Regardless, we absolutely expect our brothers to act as gentlemen at all times and do not condone demeaning or derogatory language. The headquarters imposed a number of sanctions on the chapter.” He did not respond to subsequent inquiries seeking specific details of the sanctions.

But as it would become clear in the fall semester, those measures — in addition to the sanctions imposed by the University — did not carry much weight. 

Yale’s chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity faces sanctions pertaining to a Feb. 12, 2014 initation ceremony and ensuing actions that the UWC found constituted sexual misconduct. (Ken Yanagisawa, Photography Editor)

THE SANCTIONS: IN ‘LETTER,’ BUT NOT IN ‘SPIRIT’

It was 11:30 p.m. on a Thursday night, Dec. 4, 2014, almost 10 months after SAE initiation. It was cold enough to warrant a ski jacket. The houses of High Street, Yale’s equivalent of “Fraternity Row,” pulsated with the beats of dance music. At SAE, a pair of brothers wearing ski masks sat on the stoop, guarding the door above which their letters hang. After passing an ID inspection, guests were directed through the house to the backyard, the source of the music. Students lined up to take shots from an ice luge, then arranged shot glasses on a ski to take a round as a group. Paper snowflakes hung from string across the patio. A bubble machine overhead created a snowfall effect. The theme was “Après Ski.”

Hundreds of Yale students were invited to a December party hosted and jointly sponsored by SAE

Hundreds of Yale students had received a Facebook invitation to the event reading, “après-ski / verb/ (Turkish: getting drunk before reading week, after skiing): going out, having a good time, dancing and socializing after skiing … Skiing experience optional, ski attire, required.” The Yale European Undergraduates, Yale Arab Student Association and the “brothers of SAE” were hosting, according to a screenshot of the event invitation. The event was typical frat bacchanalia, nothing out of the ordinary. SAE traditionally throws “Late Night” parties on Thursdays, offering beer from kegs and punch to anyone with a Yale ID. The event was later deleted from Facebook.

Administrators were unaware of the event at the time, only later learning of it when Zoe brought it to their attention as a violation of the terms of the University’s sanctions against SAE — they were co-hosting an event with Yale organizations, failing to comply with restrictions on using their name in conjunction with the Yale brand. SAE said they did not know it was a breach. “We were not aware it constituted a violation of the sanctions,” the brothers said in an emailed statement to the News. “The Apres Ski party was financed and planned entirely by the [Yale European Undergraduates]. It was merely held on our property.”

The News could not find evidence of any concrete measures taken by the University to monitor SAE’s compliance with the terms of their probation, which had minor effects on the everyday operations of the fraternity. “The punishment was a slap on the wrist,” said a student who was a brother at the time. Because SAE’s house is off-campus, the on-campus ban had virtually no impact, like imposing rules on residents of one state and expecting them to apply to residents across the border. SAE could advertise its functions via Facebook or Gmail rather than Yale email. On the day after the sanctions were handed down, some of the brothers created a map with locations of where SAE could host parties and events because they could not do so on Yale’s campus or Universityowned properties, according to two students who were SAE brothers at the time. “They were not accepting the spirit of the punishment,” a former brother said. “Just the letter of the punishment.”

Meanwhile, the administration tried to implement cultural reform within the fraternity to varying degrees of success, reflecting a history of fraught relations. Holloway said the administration has continuously questioned keeping Greek life as a whole — nine fraternities and three sororities — at arm’s length. “Some say we really need to strengthen our ties because then we can control them better,” he said in an interview about how the University interacts with Greek organizations. “Others say we don’t want this risk. This is out of control. They are a liability. I don’t think Yale has really made a firm commitment.” Indeed, Holloway said the power of the University to regulate an off-campus group with Yale affiliation, such as Greek organizations, is “limited.”

“But as individuals in the organization, they are still Yale students,” he added. “So if a Yale student is found in violation, we have the full power of the University.”

Hannah Peck DIV ’11, director of student affairs and Yale’s designated Greek life liaison, had engaged fraternity leadership in ongoing conversations throughout the fall 2014 semester, “trying to build trust amongst the organizations,” as Holloway explained. The brothers confirmed in an email that they “have been in constant contact with the administration, both to ensure that the sanctions are being followed and to assist … in moving past the incident of last spring.”

But the purpose of these discussions was not to emphasize SAE’s punishment; it was to ensure members were making strides in creating a more positive sexual environment. The intent was “educative,” as Holloway put it. With no clear sense of how violations would be punished, however, the fraternity was given little motivation to follow the letter of their restrictions. They pushed its limits. “It is an us-against-them mentality with the administration,” the former brother said.

When contacted for further comment about the University’s dealing in this specific case, Holloway said in an email that he “simply cannot comment on this now that your story has taken this turn.”

Some fraternity members attempted to lead an internal push for reform in the wake of the sanctions, which roiled the fraternity despite their limited effect on day-to-day operations. Some of the brothers learned only in the fall that the president at the time of the spring initiation had told Zoe to keep her head down and ride out the rumors. His stance did not reflect the views of the fraternity as a whole; rather, other members condemned how he had handled the conversation with her, according a student who was an SAE brother at the time.

“The process is all about telling freshmen, ‘You’re worthless, you’re not good enough, you need to be re-fashioned, you’re not valuable.’”

—Former SAE brother

Some members of the fraternity met on Sept. 2 to discuss the events of initiation, how Zoe was treated thereafter and how it was unacceptable behavior. They saw SAE’s reputation for sexual misconduct as connected to their “demeaning” initiation process. “People did not understand that link,” the former brother said. “The process is all about telling freshmen, ‘You’re worthless, you’re not good enough, you need to be refashioned, you’re not valuable.’ It’s just a trial, an ordeal.” New members internalize those dehumanizing experiences and project them outward in other social contexts, including how they treat women, the brother argued.

Certain brothers petitioned to eliminate certain traditions, but they were unsuccessful due to significant resistance from senior members, several brothers said. An email from a brother outlining changes was initially met with approval before it encountered stiff opposition from others, who demanded a meeting. Older members threatened to leave the fraternity if change came too quickly. A deal was struck: The tradition would take place once more but then never again.

Splintered among their ranks, SAE would face an arduous process of rebuilding.

 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONFIDENCE

Meeting with CCEs

In the activities room in Swing Space, Zoe spoke to the CCEs

Meanwhile, Zoe continued to push the administration to uphold, as well as to publicize, the terms of the sanctions against the fraternity. She corresponded with administrators on seven different email threads in the fall semester and met with University Title IX Coordinator and Deputy Provost Stephanie Spangler to address the aftermath of the hearing. In fact, it was only weeks after the hearing that Zoe suggested in a meeting with UWC chair David Post that SAE write an open letter to the student body apologizing for the incident of sexual misconduct.

But during the fall semester, administrators instead encouraged her to meet with Melanie Boyd, assistant dean of student affairs and the director of the Communication and Consent Educators, peer educators who runs workshops on sexual consent. As a result of conversations with Boyd, Zoe made a presentation to a group of CCEs explaining the process of filing a UWC complaint and describing the details of her story in confidence.

On Dec. 3, she pressed administrators to elaborate on their efforts to enforce the sanctions against SAE. “I strongly feel that my peers should know that the SAE suspension has been imposed, let alone what the fraternity members did to warrant such a punishment,” she wrote in an email to Post and Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry.

She wrote again on Dec. 11, emphasizing a formal letter’s importance in informing the student body that the fraternity had been sanctioned for sexual misconduct. Post replied later that day: “We have not finalize [sic] the final wording but we will considered [sic] both a ‘violation of undergraduate regulations’ and ‘a violation of sexual misconduct policy’ … I understand your point of view and concerns but we have additional privacy concerns we have to balance.”

In further emails, administrators promised to send the letter at the beginning of the spring semester. It was on Feb. 13, 2015, that Holloway finally addressed the Yale community in an email, prefacing a letter of apology signed by “The Brothers of SAE.” A full year had passed since the SAE initiation event. Zoe had no advance warning and was shocked to find the letter in her email inbox when she awoke that morning.

Post offered this explanation of the decision to send a campuswide email: “At times, when the sanctions in a particular case affect the way that an individual or organization interacts with the community, the University may share information about those sanctions with the affected community.”

He added in reference to the revelation of details of a UWC case, “I am deeply disturbed by this breach of confidentiality. Confidentiality protects the parties and the process. Publishing the details of cases discourages reliance on the UWC and undermines the ability of the UWC to provide a fair and thorough review of very serious matters.”

Holloway’s campuswide email marked the first time the University had brought public attention to the case. The account included sparse information, as dictated by the University’s confidentiality requirement for UWC proceedings. According to the UWC’s statement on confidentiality, “The purpose of confidentiality is to encourage parties and witnesses to participate in UWC proceedings and share all the information they have to offer, which is essential to reaching a fair outcome.”

The message described the event as “a presentation that was found to be in violation of the University’s policy on sexual misconduct” and revealed that members had made “attempts to impede the investigation.” The brothers outlined their reform efforts: They had adjusted their new member initiation process to “more clearly reflect the values of our organization” and had initiated meetings with the CCEs. The brothers had received professional guidance on “promoting good citizenship and creating a more positive sexual climate.” They had used chapter funds to send three officers to national leadership training last fall. Finally, they had met with an institutional psychologist who emphasized culture change.

“We believe we have made significant progress in this area,” the brothers said in the statement emailed to the News.

Holloway wrote to the college regarding SAE's sanctions on Feb. 13, 2015

The Yale Women’s Center praised the decision to notify the student body but questioned the underlying logic of confidentiality as applied to SAE, “not an individual but an influential organization,” according to a statement provided to the News in February.

Able to impart only a few details, the email appeared strong-handed against sexual misconduct while suggesting that the fraternity had learned its lesson. The perception in some corners of the media was that the University had been forceful, indeed perhaps unduly so, in reaction to the misdeeds.

“Total Frat Move,” a humor site catering to Greek life audiences nationwide, published a story with the headline: “Yale Just Dicked Its SAE Chapter Because Of Comments Made A Year Ago By Graduated Members.” The story, quoting SAE national officials who expressed shock that Yale would punish the entire fraternity for the actions of the few who made “nothing but a few ‘inappropriate comments,’” argued that “Collegeaged males are comprised of alcohol and a ravenous sexual appetite. What the fuck do universities think these guys are going to discuss?”

Rather than bringing attention to the issue of sexual misconduct, the administration appeared to come down hard on a couple of bantering boys. Confidentiality protected the identities of the individuals involved, but it hindered the administration in providing a timely and accurate portrayal of what happened as a means of educating the Yale community, Zoe said.

Zoe also felt that the fraternity had not upheld its end of the confidentiality agreement. The more than 50 members who had attended initiation were free to circulate rumors about what had happened, she said. Meanwhile, she was silenced by UWC confidentiality, unable to clarify the truth. She compared her case to SAE’s racist chants at the University of Oklahoma last month.

“How would the University have reacted if this event had been caught on tape and released on the Internet?” she asked.

 

This photograph captures the backyard of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity on April 26, 2014, during a party on the day of Spring Fling. It does not depict events specifically described in the text of this story. This image was captured before the University sanctioned the fraternity as a result of the case outlined in this story. (Provided to the Yale Daily News)

THE AFTERMATH

Zoe has struggled to move on, but so has the fraternity. Since the sanctions, the brothers of SAE have renewed their focus on ensuring that fraternity members conduct themselves with respect in all interactions, they said. “We recognize that the incident last spring was wrong, and we sincerely apologize,” they wrote in an email. “We want SAE to be a positive social outlet and a safe place for everyone. We do not believe that productive conversations addressing last spring’s incident hinder progress. We are trying to move on and improve, making sure no similar incidents arise in the future.”

Nevertheless, the UWC case has come to define Zoe’s years at Yale. After the UWC case concluded, her parents raised the possibility of her transferring to another university for junior year. They knew the toll the case and its aftermath had taken on her and wanted her to get a fresh start. She rejected the idea — she wanted to see her education through.

This spring, the last of the SAE brothers found responsible in the UWC case will graduate. But Zoe still has senior year ahead of her. The case will continue to affect her in ways large and small. In the library or around a seminar table, she wonders who has heard the nastier strains of the rumors.

“This entire thing has forever changed the way I interact with the student body,” she said.

 

 

Editor’s picks

SAE sanctions: Drastic or insignificant?

Despite a college-wide email announcing penalties imposed upon SAE for violating University sexual misconduct policies, including a ban from campus, the sanctions may not be as harsh as they sound.

Enough alcohol to call it rape?

After complaint to University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, two students wait.

Our HIV crisis:
Reclaim the spotlight

By Kyle Tramonte, Staff Columnist
Published on April 15, 2015

 

T

wo weeks ago, I was talking to history professor George Chauncey ’77 GRD ’89 when he reached back into his memory to describe the late professor John Boswell. He couldn’t find words of his own, so he relied on a story. One day while walking out of Boswell’s undergraduate lecture, he overheard a student talking to a friend. The student excitedly proclaimed, “You see what I said about how amazing his lectures are. It’s like he’s in an opera!”

John Boswell

(The Yale AIDS Memorial Project)

Chauncey paused, as I am sure he did when he told the same story at Boswell’s memorial service 20 years ago, and said, “He was right. And Jeb was our diva.”

I suppose when someone commands a place in the spotlight, it brings both the adoration of an attentive audience as well as their sorrow during the ensuing tragedy of his death. By this standard, Boswell was indeed a diva.

Boswell joined the Yale faculty at age 28, won the National Book Award at age 33, taught a famous Yale lecture and fathered the concept of lesbian and gay studies here at Yale. In late 1994, at age 47, Boswell also joined the scores of Yale community members who lost their battle to HIV/AIDS.

The Yale AIDS Memorial Project’s website catalogs memories of some of these men:

David W. Dunlap ’74 still remembers a night with Warren Smith ’74, who died of AIDS-related complications: “We got into bed and looked at one another across the space of the pillow. And it was, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ And, ‘I think I am.’”

Bill Rubenstein ’82 still remembers John Wallace ’82: “Our senior year at Yale, John and I had been in an American Studies reading group together, and I sat across the seminar table mesmerized by his beauty while everyone chattered on about the social significance of Barbie dolls and ‘Graceland’ and ‘My Mother the Car.’”

John Wallace ’82

(The Yale AIDS Memorial Project)

Reading over the transcript of Chauncey’s remarks at Boswell’s memorial service, I couldn’t help but notice something: Chauncey lauded John Boswell’s extraordinary gifts and his efforts that helped make Yale the “gay Ivy.” He spoke of members of the University who would yearn for his presence. But he didn’t say that the University would miss him. The implication was that Yale would move on. At first I thought this was an unintentional omission, but then I realized it wasn’t.

Even the most profound experiences and people will fade from campus memory as, year by year, the composition of the student body and the faculty changes. The unyielding churn of the University all but ensures that one’s Yale experience remains personal and not institutional. This produces an unfortunate result: Because the student body evolves, the concerns of a class year or a series of class years, left unruffled on the shelves, fade from memory. Individuals might remember John Boswell, John Wallace and Warren Smith. But Yale University as a body does not; it has moved on from its struggle with HIV.

Yale sacrificed many of its sons to the epidemic, but their identities seem lost in the past.

The University has failed because, like everyone else, it let a welcome shift in the meaning of a positive HIV diagnosis — from acute infection and certain death to chronic illness — absolve it of its responsibility to act. People stopped dying around us, so we have stopped caring, stopped remembering and haven’t taken the active steps necessary to secure an HIV- and AIDS-free generation. It is no longer a priority.

Warren Smith ’74

(The Yale AIDS Memorial Project)

Next month, many young gay men, myself included, will leave this campus and flock to metropolitan areas. Some will move to cities like Atlanta, where nearly half of newly diagnosed HIV cases at Grady Hospital have already progressed to AIDS. Others will take up residence in New York, where a large white and upper-class gay population acts as a buffer to transmission. Some will avoid HIV. Others will help fulfill the prediction that 50 percent of young gay men will contract this race- and class-segmented virus in the next 30 years, likely suffering unwarranted shame and isolation in their post-college years.

But for some reason, on this campus, we relegate the issue of gay men’s health to a tiny office in Swing Space and the generic advice, “Use a condom.”

Yale needs to step up its game. But until then, we, the students, gay and straight, must take up the charge, both here on campus and when we leave. Let’s reclaim the spotlight Boswell left behind. We can be divas too. We can refuse to exit the stage.

 

 

 

 

"Constructively Occupied"

By Emma Platoff
Published on April 3, 2015

 

For Michaela Macdonald ’18, it started in elementary school.

In and out of treatment for a depressive disorder she discovered early on, she was pleased when, after her senior year of high school, she was feeling better. She stopped treatment before starting at Yale, but soon into freshman fall, she picked it back up again. After an unsuccessful stint with a counselor at Yale Mental Health and Counseling, she turned to a therapist outside the University.

“I love Yale, I really do. But it kind of feels like it turned on me when I needed something it couldn’t give me.”

—Michaela Macdonald ’18

It worked for a time, but once sophomore year started, Macdonald found herself discussing her mental health with her dean in near weekly meetings. Still, she was surprised when he first suggested time off from Yale. And initially she refused.

“I was like, ‘absolutely not’ — I’d never gone off the beaten path before,” she says, sipping from an organic-looking tea that turns her tongue yellow-green. Home now, Macdonald has agreed to meet me in one of her many workplaces: Steam Coffee Bar, famous for its “locally acquired, chef inspired” drinks and treats. She puts down her tea and continues. “But things didn’t really get better.”

During Thanksgiving break, realizing how daunting the thought of returning to Yale was, she broached the subject of withdrawing with her parents. Her mom was more supportive than her dad, initially, but both came around — until they discovered the financial implications. Both Macdonald and her brother receive financial aid from their respective colleges, and her taking a semester off would have meant a nearly $20,000 hit for their family. After consulting Yale financial aid’s office, Macdonald and her parents realized withdrawing was simply not a financial possibility.

And so, she went back.

But the spring semester was “just miserable,” and by February, Macdonald knew she couldn’t stay at Yale. She was skipping class, dropping extracurricular activities and, in the process, becoming more and more socially isolated. Just weeks into the semester, after consulting with her dean, her parents agreed to shoulder the financial burden. Macdonald left in February. Since getting home her health has improved, but she remains conflicted on her feelings about the University.

“I love Yale, I really do,” Macdonald told me. “But it kind of feels like it turned on me when I needed something it couldn’t give me.”

Since withdrawing from Yale, Michaela Macdonald '18 has started working at Steam Coffee Bar. (Emma Platoff)

Macdonald hasn’t been back to visit and is in touch with friends from school only infrequently. There are no bad feelings, she says. It’s just that everyone is so busy.

Social life at home isn’t much better. Two of her high school friends are also home taking time off from school, but she rarely sees them, also due to busy schedules. Her parents, especially given the added financial stress of her withdrawal, are “not the most fun to live with.” She spends a lot of time with coworkers from her restaurant job — many of whom are decades older than she is — but they are hard to relate to. It’s been a strange transition, returning to the restrictions of living in her parents’ house after the freedom of college.

Still, she feels good. The first few weeks home were difficult, but since she found ways to fill her time, it’s been only positive. Face flushed from a long gym session, she smiles throughout nearly our whole conversation. On top of spending most of each weekend as a restaurant hostess, Macdonald has recently started teaching English as a second language to immigrant women in a nearby city. She’s volunteering at the Humane Society. She’s helping Steam Coffee Bar’s owner handle the business and will soon manage the shop’s second location.

“I’m doing a lot better and more productive things with my time right now than when I was at school,” she said. “Everyone’s like, ‘I’m so sorry.’ But I feel great right now. I’m really taking control of my health.”

***

Some students, like Macdonald, find peace away from Yale; others continue to struggle. Even so, policy treats everyone the same. Yale does not differentiate, for example, between students who withdraw in the fall and those who withdraw in the spring, and the four months of the summer mean students who leave around the same time can be required to spend drastically different amounts of time away. Medical withdrawals require a student to take off one semester in addition to the one from which she withdraws, meaning a student who withdrew on medical leave in December 2014 would first be eligible for readmission in fall of 2015. But a student who withdrew in late January 2015 would have to wait nearly a full calendar year, until the beginning of the spring semester in mid-January 2016.

“I was like, ‘absolutely not’ — I’d never gone off the beaten path before. But things didn’t really get better.”

—Michaela Macdonald ’18

“It makes me angry that I had to take the entire year off,” Macdonald said. “Who’s to say I won’t be well enough to go back in the fall?”

Macdonald said Yale would do well to examine each readmission candidate on an individualized basis. Mental health is incredibly personal; the policies should be personalized as well.

In fact, this lack of individualization is one of the loudest criticisms of Yale’s withdrawal and readmission rules.  Among many other reforms suggested in spring 2013, the Yale College Council proposed that the University consider withdrawn students on a case by case basis, taking into account their financial needs and the quirks of their home lives. A committee charged with reexamining the University’s withdrawal and readmission policies has promised to consider the YCC’s list of recommendations along with other student feedback. But so far there has been no response to the YCC’s call to personalize policy.

Among many ambiguities in Yale’s withdrawal policies, perhaps the most confusing is the phrase “constructively occupied,” the state Yale requires its withdrawn students to maintain while away from school. The University explicitly requires withdrawn students to take two courses before reapplying, but beyond that, students must define “constructive” for themselves. Some residential college deans give more advice than others, and many students are confused about how they are meant to fill the time they spend away. Is a minimum wage job constructive, they wonder? What about an internship? And what if the most “constructive” thing to do would be to simply focus on therapy?

Even while fulfilling Yale’s most unambiguous requirement — the two courses — students often feel like they’re wasting their time. This semester,Peter** is taking “Issues in Sustainability” and “Introduction to Psychology” at a nearby community college, but he feels like he would be more constructive outside the classroom. Peter appreciates that readmission committee chair Pamela George made an exception to the course rule by allowing him to enroll at a community college instead of a four-year institution in order to save money. But the requirement still kept him from accepting a tempting job offer that would have involved fully funded travel across Asia, and it’s frustrating to sit through classes unrelated to his major just to show Yale he’s ready to come back.

“A more individualized approach would make a big difference,” he said. “A person can show that they’re ready to come back without following an exact procedure.”

Despite a busy schedule, Eugenia Zhukovsky '18 usually has mornings to herself. (Emma Platoff)

Eugenia Zhukovsky ’18 has been hearing questionable things from physicians all her life. Following a growth plate injury when she was eight, a doctor told her one leg would never grow again (currently, she stands at a petite but balanced 5’3”). After a year of drastic decline in the quality of her eyesight, a physician told her she’d be legally blind by age 16 (now 19, she wears contact lenses, but still sees and drives). Most recently, a few questionable prescriptions from psychiatrists at MH&C have left her doubting the quality of Yale’s medical resources.

At home, Zhukovsky works with doctors she trusts. After starting psychiatric medication the summer before her sophomore year at Yale, Zhukovsky spent much of her first semester struggling to settle on the right dosages. Back on campus, she tried to find the treatment with unsatisfying results.

“It wasn’t as consistent, it wasn’t really that accurate — it just wasn’t very good,” she said.

Instead, she tried commuting home each month to Long Island to see doctors there. But this method was both unsatisfying and unfeasible. Following a particularly bad panic attack in late November, Zhukovsky decided to speak with her residential college dean.

“I was so nervous about what was going on — it just all caught up with me,” Zhukovsky said. “[My dean] suggested maybe taking medical leave, and to take Thanksgiving as time to decide. I came back after Thanksgiving break already considering myself out of school for that semester.”

Zhukovsky now keeps track of her life in a small green notebook containing to-do lists in no particular order — her memory, she says, is a little fuzzy because of some of her medications. She jokes that she takes twice as long as most people to do things — get out of the car, gather her belongings or her thoughts. But she is not the kind of person who could sit still all day.

A month after leaving Yale, she spent 10 days in Israel on a Birthright trip – a good experience, she said, although her medication sometimes left her feeling unlike herself, as she was still struggling to find the right dosages.  Now back home in Stony Brook, Long Island, Zhukovsky has worked a total of four jobs, with a maximum of three at any one time. On weekday afternoons, she dons a red polo and heads to a job supervising an after-school activities program at a nearby junior high. Recently, the kids in the performing arts contingent — an especially rambunctious group that the rest of the staffers studiously avoid — have discovered Zhukovsky’s background in gymnastics, and recruited her to spot cartwheels and coach other acrobatics. The day I’m there is especially hectic, she tells me. The kids argue about whether the window should be left open, and someone has been left out of a dance number for the talent show. Zhukovsky tries to retain control without becoming a tyrant, but isn’t always successful.

Two or three days a week, she follows her first job with a shift at a local tutoring center. It’s chaotic in a whole different way: persuading kids to master the protractor when they might prefer to braid each other’s hair or throw Styrofoam dice at their sisters. But both jobs are hard, and both jobs remind her of how much she wants to get back to Yale.

Compared to her hectic afternoons, mornings are relaxed — a stop at the neighborhood bagel shop, smoking cigarettes by one of the many local beaches with friends from home, a few errands. She sees both a psychiatrist and a therapist regularly, a routine she will likely continue when she returns to campus, though she said she will not seek psychiatric treatment from Yale again. On the weekends, she has recently started attending a stand-up comedy class in Manhattan; while we talk, we brainstorm ideas for the three- minute monologue she has due in the next Sunday.

A few friends from high school still live nearby, at Stony Brook University or Suffolk County Community College, but Zhukovsky mainly uses the time off for herself, doing things she wouldn’t have time for at Yale: pleasure reading, writing, taking the comedy class. It’s sometimes difficult to spend time with friends who are on such different pages in their lives, she said. If she doesn’t see friends after work, she’ll go home, listen to her extensive record collection and sleep. The cycle begins again when she wakes up the next morning, usually around six — a new internal alarm clock that is likely a side effect of her medication.

Zhukovsky is not shy about her mental health — one of the problems with the stigma surrounding mental illness, she says, is that people are afraid to talk about it. When I ask about medications, I’m worried it will bother her, but she ticks dosages off on her fingers without any hesitation. She tells me about her sometimes contradictory, always confusing side effects — drowsiness, hyperactivity, anxiety — and explains that it’s hard to gauge which pills cause which. Still, since coming home, she is feeling far better.

“I wouldn’t say it’s 100% perfect, because none of these things are 100% perfect ever,” Zhukovsky said. “But it’s definitely better — it’s in a place where I feel like, ‘I can live in this place.’”

For Zhukovsky, being home on medical withdrawal feels a lot like being back in high school — old friends, parent-imposed curfews, familiar landmarks. She does not regret taking the time off — being away was necessary for her to get medications and side effects in order, and she’s enjoyed having some time to herself.

But what she really wants is to go back as soon as possible, so she can put the experience behind her. And being busy makes the time go by faster

“I’m happy I took the time off,” she said. “But if I could have done treatment at Yale, I would not have wanted to leave.” 

***

Being home, Zhukovsky says, is a constant reminder that once you were a Yale student, and now you’re not. Part of that is the physical landmarks — 7-Elevens that inspire nostalgia, that quintessential suburban bagel shop we visit two times in as many days, the countless beaches looking out over the Sound — but it’s also the people. During the workday I spend with her, both students and employers often forget why she’s away from school for a whole semester. Several ask if that’s “even allowed.” Each time she’s met with the question, she responds the same way.

“That’s a longer story, but we can have that conversation if you want,” Zhukovsky replies. Most kids don’t inquire further.

Withdrawing has given Zhukovsky time to read, write and enjoy her extensive record collection. (Emma Platoff)

But their confusion resonates with many others, including withdrawn students themselves, who wonder: are you still a Yale student when you’re away from Yale?

At an open mental health forum in February, administrators acknowledged the role words like “withdrawal” and “readmission” play in this perception.

“A lot of us have discussed the term readmission,” English professor John Rogers, the chair of the committee reviewing withdrawal and readmission policies, said. “It suggests you are not a Yale student, and it isn’t true.”

But rhetoric is one thing, and realities another: students overwhelmingly disagree with Rogers’s statement. While withdrawn, students lose access to Yale resources like career services and libraries. They lose their netIDs and Yale emails, a puzzling policy that makes communicating — already difficult — even more of a challenge. Students aren’t allowed to be active in Yale extracurricular activities (barring special permission from Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry), don’t retain swipe access to Yale buildings, and can’t participate in the housing draw for the semester they return.

Withdrawn students also lose their Yale Health coverage, which makes it especially difficult for students like Ray Mejico ’17, who received full financial aid at Yale and relied on University insurance, to find treatment at home. Since withdrawing in early February, Mejico has had to apply for Medicaid in his home state of Nevada. But he isn’t sure how much mental health care the insurance covers, nor is he sure of how much treatment he — or Yale — will require before he can return. Medicaid covers 15 sessions, but prior to Mejico’s withdrawal, he heard from a Yale MH&C counselor that he would need to complete six months of therapy. Lorraine Siggins, chief psychiatrist at Yale Health, did not return request for comment on whether readmission requires a certain number of therapy sessions.

Other than one response email from his college dean and Yale’s official withdrawal letter, sent to all students when they leave, Mejico said he has not received any formal communication from the University, from George or from other administrators. He remains close with many of his school friends, but describes the University’s attitude as “pretty exclusionary.”

“We’re taught to buy into the idea that Yale is our home for the next four years. If I choose to leave my home, I like to feel that I’m still part of a family there,” Mejico said. “I withdrew and they washed their hands of me.”

***

Mejico had been struggling with depression since high school and considering taking time off from Yale since his freshman year. Once he came to his decision, though, the process began to move much more quickly.

Mejico and his residential college dean, Camille Lizarribar of Ezra Stiles, were close for most of his time at Yale — they would often meet in her house for casual conversations over an episode of The Walking Dead. But their talk one Sunday evening in early February was far shorter than a 42-minute episode. He told her he had decided to leave, and she presented him with two options:  Mejico could take a medical leave or a personal leave, the latter of which requires the student to be gone one semester longer. Mejico chose a medical withdrawal so that he could return to campus more quickly, and Lizarribar set up an appointment at Yale Health for the next day: before he could leave, Mejico’s medical withdrawal had to be authorized by a doctor from Yale MH&C.

Mejico met with a Yale Health counselor the next afternoon for just twenty minutes. After this meeting, his first with a Yale counselor — Mejico, like many students, said he was afraid to speak openly or at all with MH&C staff, for fear of being forcibly sent home — the counselor gave him an informal diagnosis of depression and authorized him to leave.

At his dean’s prodding, Mejico submitted his official request for withdrawal that Tuesday night. By Wednesday, he was gone.

Mejico said the process felt routine, but not necessarily in a bad way. Neither his dean nor the counselor was aloof, but Mejico still felt like he was being nudged through an impersonal process.

“[The counselor’s] general indifference was beneficial to the situation. I really wasn’t looking to talk to anyone anyway,” Mejico said. “He wasn’t cold or distant or anything — but it did seem like he was just following protocol, passing me on to the next person to check a box.”

Like many students, Zhukovsky is spending her withdrawal at home. (Emma Platoff)

At home now for nearly two months, Mejico has only recently found a therapist and a job working part-time at a local movie theater. Still, he’s unsure how his financial aid situation will look upon his return. He recently received a letter informing him that because he is no longer a student, he must repay his federal financial aid loans, which most students don’t have to worry about until after graduation. He’ll also have to find a way to pay for two courses at the University of Las Vegas, as Yale financial aid does not extend to classes taken outside the University. But many other institutions, UNLV included, do not offer financial aid to students who are merely visiting.

“We’re taught to buy into the idea that Yale is our home for the next four years. If I choose to leave my home, I like to feel that I’m still part of a family there. I withdrew and they washed their hands of me.”

—Ray Mejico ’17

Many students, Mejico among them, said the process of withdrawal is explained as a simple one before they leave, but once they are home, complexities and challenges reveal themselves. In retrospect, Mejico wishes he had waited until the fall and instead taken a leave of absence, which requires students to leave within the first 10 days of a semester, but allows them to return without reapplying. A leave of absence would have left Mejico eligible to keep his Yale Health coverage and would not have required him to pay for any courses outside Yale. Because students are generally not required to begin repaying loans until six months after the last day of formal enrollment at Yale, a semester-long leave of absence would likely have eliminated his financial aid issues as well.

“If I had known how much of a hassle the financial burden would be, I probably wouldn’t have [withdrawn],” he said. “I’m withdrawing to work on myself, but because the whole readmissions process is so unnecessarily stressful, I’m not really given any time to work on myself.”

Much of the stress of withdrawal comes from uncertainty. Zhukovsky, like others, said that the main issue is not the policies themselves, but the lack of clarity surrounding them. Without any University-initiated communication after the withdrawal letter, students feel not just confused but alienated.

“I have so many questions still,” she said. “I email people asking questions all the time and no one really responds to me.”

Zhukovsky said the answers she does get are vague and sporadic, and often leave her with a new question: why didn’t anyone tell me this before? Because she no longer receives communications about such concerns, Zhukovsky hadn’t even considered where she would live upon her return to campus until her former roommate asked about her plans.

Zhukovsky is staying busy at home, but wants to return to Yale as soon as possible. (Sophia Zhukovsky)

While George did not return request for comment on the communications that come out of her office, several withdrawn students said that after the official withdrawal letter, they did not receive any further communication from the University.

Peter has already had to reapply for financial aid, even before Yale’s official re-application deadline. But since he’s no longer enrolled, the financial aid office is no longer in touch; he has to initiate all these communications himself to ensure he won’t miss deadlines.

Every withdrawn student interviewed said the University would do well to send routine, if occasional, emails reminding them of important dates.

“I want them to consider us a priority, but they do kind of seem like they don’t care,” Zhukovsky said. “I want some reassurance that they’re still looking out for us, and still want us back at the school. It doesn’t help if you’re an anxious or depressed person, and the school you felt like you really belonged to doesn’t help you. It’s like they want you to be fixed and then come back.”

That lack of communication often extends up until the moment that students are readmitted — or not. Unlike students being admitted the first time, reapplying students don’t know when they’ll hear a decision. They aren’t told when their readmission interviews will be, so they have to be ready to come to Yale at a moment’s notice. Interviews have to be held in person; Peter heard from his dean that there is no flexibility. This restriction has kept withdrawn students from studying abroad, or pursuing other avenues of “constructive” occupation.

And for many, perhaps the most frustrating part is that it seems that these policies can be easily improved.

***

That frustration hardly dissipates when a student returns to campus. After being forced to withdraw November of her freshman year when she revealed suicidal thoughts to a counselor at MH&C, Marie Cain ’16 did — she thought — everything she was supposed to do in order to come back. She enrolled in two courses at the University of Connecticut and received an A in each; her therapist and psychiatrist both recommended her for readmission to Yale; she interned at a law office. But Cain’s initial application for readmission was rejected. Although she has since returned to campus, she still doesn’t know why she wasn’t accepted the first time. Her only guess is the interview: the first time they met, Cain said George was “very critical.”

“Even though I had the full support of my psychiatrist and therapist, and good reviews from the law office, I was denied readmission without being told why,” Cain said. “They never specified. They don’t have to.”

All withdrawn students interviewed expressed some worry about their prospects of readmission. Many worry for reasons particular to them. Mejico, for example, was ex-commed by George last year for an unrelated incident, and is not optimistic about his next encounter with her. And Macdonald worries that the positive spin her residential college dean has put on the whole process will prove unrealistic when readmission rolls around. But for the most part, students worry about whether they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and even if they are, whether it will prove enough.

George told the News in February that most withdrawn students are readmitted. Still, in January she said that Yale’s readmission policies have room for “immediate improvement.”

The same month, Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway said that withdrawal from Yale, a deeply personal process, will likely never be completely satisfying for anyone who goes through it, no matter what policies Yale puts in place. Legal issues govern withdrawal, and students who have to leave are unlikely to ever be pleased. But readmission, he said, is more under Yale’s control, because Yale can set the terms. Readmission is where Yale has the most freedom to improve.

With the review committee set to release its report anytime, the University could starting implementing new policies as soon as over the summer, Holloway hopes. The committee’s formation and the February forum signal that the University is taking student frustration seriously.

But true commitment needs to be seen before it will be believed, it seems, and students are unlikely to stay quiet if no substantive changes are made. Many students — withdrawn students among them — were unsatisfied by the University’s efforts earlier this year to expand Yale’s MH&C resources, complaining that the changes did not go far enough. And some have seen the committee’s efforts to solicit student feedback as insufficient and even insincere. This has left students far from optimistic about the potential for change.

“I’m kind of mad at Yale all the time. I want to respect their decisions, but I have not seen any reason to, because they haven’t explained any of the reasons behind any of their decisions,” Zhukovsky said. “I love the school and I believe the administration has good intentions. But I need more proof.”

 

Our HIV crisis:
PrEP is not a cure

By Kyle Tramonte, Staff Columnist
Published on April 1, 2015

 

T

ake a pill daily and prevent the contraction of HIV 99 percent of the time.

That is the narrative presented to many young men who have sex with men (MSM) by their peers regarding pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). And, as is normally the case with anything framed in such a simple manner, the nuances of treatment fall through the cracks.

It is unwise to herald PrEP as the key to freeing a generation from HIV. It is merely one piece of a larger effort. Not only is PrEP not for everyone, but public health activists face political obstacles similar to those hurled at advocates of birth control. Universal access to PrEP will implicate two overlapping and traditionally disparaged groups: sexually active youth and individuals in non-heterosexual relationships.

Kyle Tramonte — Green on the Vine

A little background: Candidates for PrEP must first fall into a risk group (MSM being the largest of these). Then they generally must check one of a few more boxes, like having contracted an STD or having had unprotected sex in the last six months.

Dr. Andrew Gotlin, chief of Student Health at Yale, summed up precautions surrounding PrEP this way: “It’s certainly not taking vitamin C.”

To ensure maximum efficacy, patients must take the pill daily. (This seems easy enough, but if you are a man, grab a female friend on birth control and ask if she’s ever missed a pill.) Once someone starts treatment, they must meet with their prescribing physician to monitor progress every three months. Patients certainly don’t want to miss these appointments: They are scheduled to ensure that some of the known side effects of antiretroviral treatment (like kidney disease and early-onset osteoporosis) do not set in, or that, in the event that the patient contracts HIV, the virus does not become resistant to the drugs. Toxicity of antiretroviral drugs has fallen dramatically as treatment has advanced, but the risks must be noted.

What’s more, starting treatment presumes a healthcare market that offers patients reasonably priced drugs and access to healthcare providers. Beyond these baseline challenges, achieving effective, widespread usage will require surpassing political hurdles.

The demographic of young MSM, one of the groups with the most alarming increases in HIV incidence, extends from age 13 to 24. This means that many young MSM must request PrEP under their parent’s insurance — with no right to privacy in their medical records. To get treatment that might prevent the contraction of HIV, young men will have to disclose their sexual orientation not only to their physicians but also to their parents, a prospect that is daunting for many well into adulthood, never mind adolescence.

Privacy carve-outs for young women seeking birth control are enshrined in many of our laws. As long as the person seeking contraception does not pose a risk to herself or a risk to others, privacy is respected, even when the patient is a minor. Given the novelty of PrEP, similar carve-outs do not yet exist for young men’s health, and patient assistance programs that might help young gay men acquire the drugs are few and far between. Young gay men bearing the brunt of the current HIV epidemic are left to fend for themselves if they remain in the closet.

Further, talking about the doctor’s office presumes that someone can even afford treatment. Yale Health generously covers Truvada as PrEP for students enrolled in the health plan, but not all commercial insurers cover PrEP as readily. Some insurance companies require pre-authorization for case-specific requests, and many plans include high co-pays. And in the event that you do not have insurance due to unemployment or your state withholding Medicaid expansion funds, you can pretty much forget about getting the drug: The cost of treatment can be as high as $13,000 a year.

Even further, the Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allows closely held for-profit corporations to deny contraception coverage, may end up getting applied to the drug. Religious-based opposition to sex between men remains strong, and efforts to deny coverage for PrEP might find refuge in our courts.

As we search for the most effective ways to tackle the HIV epidemic, PrEP will play an important role. But as my conversations with activists and medical professionals have revealed over the past weeks, every time someone says, “PrEP,” they should say “TASP” (treatment as prevention) twice.

Effective testing and treatment remain the primary mechanisms for eradicating the virus. Getting the HIV-positive population on a treatment plan toward viral suppression is drastically easier than persuading the much larger MSM community to take a drug every day. We shouldn’t rely on PrEP as a saving grace, but rather embrace it as an option for those most at risk. The bulk of our resources should go towards continuing to use treatment as prevention. If we succeed with TASP, there will be no need for PrEP.

Moving beyond the arc

By James Badas and Ashley Wu — Staff Reporters
Video by Peter Chung and Raleigh Capozzalo

“Jack Montague ’16 can knock down shots from beyond the arc, and he can do it better than anyone in the Ivy League.”

A basketball revolution is underway with no signs of halting, and the mantra of “adapt or die” is more true than ever on the hardwood.

The future of basketball has very nearly become the present. Vanishing are the clear-cut shooting guards or power forwards, falling victim to the emergence of swingman types with wingspans that disrupt on the perimeter, handles that can lead a fast break and strength to finish in the paint.

In years past, diminutive guards could rely solely upon quickness and ball-handling skills to earn their way onto the court, but when there are players now roaming the globe — such as 6’8”, 250-pound LeBron James — who have the agility and lateral quickness to defend even the shiftiest of small guards, a new skill must be developed or expanded upon.

Enter Yale guard Jack Montague ’16. He fails to inspire onlookers with his athleticism, nor does he intimidate defenders with his physical presence. At 5’11 ¾” — he is listed in the program at a clean six feet — and 185 pounds, Montague’s appearance does not cause coaches to lose any sleep the night before a meeting with Yale.

But his three-point shooting does.

Montague is an ordinary-looking basketball player with an extraordinary skill that is just as coveted in this new era of the game as the 6’8” do-it-all athlete. He can knock down shots from beyond the arc, and he can do it better than anyone in the Ivy League.

In part thanks to Montague, Yale finds itself two victories away from its first Ivy title since 2002. What teams across all levels of the game are beginning to realize is that the relationship between proficient three-point shooting and team success is not a mere coincidence.

AN UNEXPECTED TWIST

Although Montague has found a place in the starting lineup this season, that was not always the case in his career at Yale, despite his expectations. Montague acknowledges that as a freshman, he felt like he could make a big impact, but he was young, not as strong and not as experienced as the other players on the team.

“What really helped Jack was his strength and getting in the weight room,” head coach James Jones said. “When he first got to Yale he struggled to defend people and was a liability in that way. He really made himself much bigger and stronger and got himself in a situation where he can compete with anybody physically, which really helps him on the court.”

In Jones’ system, players rarely make meaningful contributions during their freshman seasons, and Jones expects players to develop and help the team during their sophomore years. Montague has followed this trajectory almost to a T — he appeared in just nine games during his first-year campaign, averaging 4.8 minutes per contest before playing 11.7 minutes per game his second season. In 2014–15, Montague is third on the team with 29.8 minutes per game, and he is one of just three players to have started all 29 games for the Elis this season.

But to get to this stage, Montague has had to make adjustments to his game. At Brentwood High School in Brentwood, Tennessee, Montague was a dominant ball handler and more of a true point guard who distributed the ball to his teammates, averaging 17 points and seven assists per game during his senior season. But at Yale, he has learned to play alongside other facilitators, and has grown into the role of a shooter.

“I see my role as being one of the primary shooters on the team as well as being another guard who can handle the ball, run the offense [and] get us into motion or whatever play that we’re running,” Montague said. “After one season, I realized that if I’m going to play … this is going to have to be my role. I’m going to have to be different from Nick [Victor ’16] or Javier [Duren ’15] or Armani [Cotton ’15] by shooting more. As a player you just really want to play, so whatever that role seems to be, you just try to figure that out through playing, working out on your own, and talking to the coaches.”

For Yale, Montague’s willingness to embrace this role has fulfilled the expectations set for him and given the Bulldogs’ offense a different look this season.

AN ADDED DIMENSION

Yale shot tendency chart

The three-point shot has become a valuable weapon for teams across the league, but especially for the Bulldogs this season as part of their successful, multifaceted offensive attack.

In the last few years, Jones’ teams have been known for their rebounding abilities and interior play near the basket, as evidenced by the emergence of forward Justin Sears ’16 as an unstoppable force in the paint last season. But this season, the team has shifted toward a more balanced offense that has seen a rise in the number of shots taken from long range and their conversion at a higher percentage.

“I think last year [the offense] was a little more [focused] exclusively on interior play for us, but now it’s more of a balance between the [interior and perimeter play],” Sears said. “Jack, Javier and Armani, they’re very good shooters and they’re successful [outside] because we’re a very strong interior team … We’re successful inside because we’re able to spread out the offense because we shoot the three. We just have a good balance between the two.”

Last season, Yale, which finished second in the Ivy League, attempted 16.1 shots from behind the arc per game, hitting 5.3 on average for a 32.9 shooting percentage from three. Improvements in perimeter play this year, coinciding with Montague’s rise as a shooter, have led to 19.0 three-point attempts per game from the Bulldogs at a clip of 37.1 percent, or 7.1 made per contest.

In roughly the same number of possessions per game, this improved shooting from long range has boosted the team’s offense, which scores nearly two points more per outing this season than it did last season. The differences have become even more pronounced during the Ivy League campaign, as a slower pace of play in the conference season leads to fewer possessions.

“We’ve certainly made more threes because of Jack’s accuracy,” Jones said. “But Javier has improved his percentage and so has Armani Cotton, so that really added to our team having multiple guys who can knock down shots from the outside.”

The team’s improved ability at shooting the three, however, cannot completely account for the team’s improved offensive play this season. Three-point shooters are just as, if not more, valuable for their ability to space the floor and give other players on the court extra room to operate on offense.

As teams hope to avoid giving up wide open looks to Montague, the league’s best three-point shooter for whom a three is “almost like a layup” according to guard Makai Mason ’18, defenders hesitate to help against guards driving in the lane or forwards posting up down low. Thus, both guards and forwards benefit from the presence of a reliable three-point shooter on the court.

“Having a three-point shooter on the floor, it’s hard to help off of him,” Montague said. “It basically just opens up the floor for the other four players. If you’re setting a ball screen, it’s hard for that defender to help off a shooter. You can’t play the penetration lanes as much. You basically have to know where that shooter is at all times, chasing through screens. If you don’t, it’s really easy to find an open look for a shooter.”

Mason concurred, saying that three-point shooters are a constant threat on offense. He noted that the floor opens up, and the paint in particular is less crowded, as defenders are unable to help off of knockdown shooters.

Defenses are forced to pick their poison, as opponents can be hurt inside going one-on-one against Sears, attacked in the paint by a slashing guard like Duren or stabbed with a dagger of a three by Montague. In fact, Montague noted that adversaries often can only pick to defend the key or allow themselves to be vulnerable around the rim.

“The three-point shot puts a lot of pressure on the defense,” Duren said. “I think especially with our team, we have such an inside presence that teams really key in on that. So, it’s hard to get that [presence] initially, but when we start hitting shots from three-point range, it opens [the inside] up, and it makes it a lot harder for [the defense] to stop our offense when we are not only hitting twos but also hitting threes.”

How Yale beat UConn: Diagramming the three of the season

The team has such incredible confidence in Montague’s consistency from three-point range that Duren believes making him part of the offense is one of Yale’s keys to winning. Montague’s ability to score has taken pressure off of Sears and Duren, who combine to score 41.3 percent of the team’s points each game.

But perhaps another reason the three-point shot remains important to teams is the fact that a three can quickly shift momentum.

“[Three-pointers are] momentum changers,” Jones said. “All of a sudden, an eight-point lead becomes five. All of a sudden, a seven-point lead becomes 10 … There’s nothing more frustrating for a defense than to get beat with a layup or with a three-point shot. That’s why it’s such an important part of the game.”

A recent case in point was Yale’s home game against the Penn Quakers on Feb. 28. The Bulldogs were trailing by four with less than four minutes to play when Montague drained a three to cut the deficit to one point. His long range bullet spurred an 11–0 run, to which he contributed six points on two three-pointers, helping the Elis to a 55–50 win.

The three-pointer has become integral to the flow of the Bulldogs’ offense this season thanks to Montague’s sharpshooting. It remains to be seen whether the Elis build off of this year’s model and shoot more threes in the future or return to a style focused on interior play.

AN ANALYTICAL REVOLUTION

In economics, risk premiums refer to the price an actor pays in order to avoid a given level of risk. The flaw of paying such risk premiums is that said actor forgoes the opportunity to maximize his potential value in favor of a less risky alternative with a lower ceiling.

In basketball, risk premiums may as well refer to the distinctive arc precisely 20.75 feet away from the rim in regulation NCAA play. A matter of inches separates a made basket from being worth two points versus three — the allure of the arc seems so inviting, yet few teams fully invest in capitalizing on the advantageous extra point.

Rather, risk-averse teams pay a price — that of failing to capitalize on their maximum potential offensive production — to avoid the prospects of an off night in which their shooters go cold from deep. Such teams willingly lower their potential ceiling in order to raise their floor, lowering the chances for a spectacular scoring night in order to try to avoid a possibly catastrophic offensive performance, even though their actions hurt them in the long run.

“A matter of inches separates a made basket from being worth two points versus three — the allure of the arc seems so inviting, yet few teams fully invest in capitalizing on the advantageous extra point.”

Thus, the premise behind the contemporary push in basketball toward more reliance on the three-point attempt is unsurprising; that teams have not fully embraced such an approach is the real surprise.

“I think that because analytics have become prevalent in college basketball and all of athletics, it’s something that coaches take into consideration now,” Jones said. “I am not a big analytics guy. I’m more of an eye test guy; I like to see it happen. I watch tape, and I can tell you who the guys we need to stop on the other team are. I don’t need to look at statistics, but they certainly can help from time to time.”

Whereas Jones might be categorized as a reluctant believer, acknowledging the merit of the statistical analysis that has engulfed the sports world, an example on the extreme end of the spectrum can be found at the professional level.

The Houston Rockets, led by general manager and analytical guru Daryl Morey, have launched the most three-pointers in the NBA the past three seasons, based on the simple calculation that even if shooting from beyond the arc might mean a slightly lower shooting percentage, the marginal benefit of those extra points makes it worthwhile.

Such a game plan, however, is slightly more nuanced. A look at the numbers reveals that for the 2014–15 season, 36.1 percent of Yale’s attempts from the field are from beyond the arc, and rather expectedly, Montague leads the way at 68.5 percent. The Rockets are not all that far in front of the Bulldogs, as 40.2 percent of their attempts from the floor are from deep.

In fact, rival Ivy schools Princeton and Columbia each shoot a higher percentage of three-pointers than the Rockets. Where the nuance comes into play is the disparity in available data between the NBA and Ivy League basketball.

The Rockets also value shots in the paint, close to the basket, based on the idea that layups by guard James Harden and dunks by center Dwight Howard are more efficient than longer two-point shots. As a result, the Rockets have taken only 15.7 percent of their shot attempts from that midrange area. Not only is it by far the lowest percentage in the league, but it is 20.5 percent fewer than taken by the worst team in the league this season, the New York Knicks.

While data is not readily available for Ivy squads, one can safely assume the Elis have not nearly begun to streamline their offense to such proportions. Sears and fellow forward Matt Townsend ’15 are both known to take their fair share of jumpers from the 15- to 18-foot range, and both are comfortable with taking such shots.

“[The two-point jumper] has always been a comfortable shot for me,” Townsend said. “Most of the basketball analytics guys hate that [shot] but the coaches have told me that I shoot it at a high enough rate that it actually is a good shot … I felt I could contribute more sticking with the two but I think a big part of our success this year has been guys being able to shoot from three as well as they have been.”

While the numbers can begin to paint a picture of what the prototypical offense might look like, there are still variables yet to be readily explained.

Perhaps most important in Montague’s case is his aforementioned ability to space the court as a threat teams cannot ignore, adding another dimension to the team’s offense that has created room for the team’s two leading scorers, Duren and Sears, to operate in the lane.

The numbers may not yet be able to put a precise value on Montague’s ability to space the court, and the number of baskets Montague creates for the likes of Duren and Sears simply by stretching the defense may never be accurately defined.

As a consequence, Montague’s true value to the Elis may never be appropriately measured.

But if his play can help secure the Bulldogs their first Ivy championship in over a decade, and their first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 1962, then his value will be found sitting in a Yale trophy case.

Our HIV crisis:
What if?

By Kyle Tramonte, Staff Columnist
Published on March 4, 2015

 

I would venture a guess that, for those who undergo routine STI testing, it is not uncommon to play the “What if” game — “What if I have an STI (be it gonorrhea, chlamydia, whatever)?”

The answer to that question is pretty simple for most sexually transmitted infections: You get on antibiotics for three to seven days, clear up the problem and hopefully learn a lesson regarding unsafe sexual practices. But for many men who have sex with men (MSM), the “What if” game includes the question “What if I am HIV positive?” A week’s worth of antibiotics certainly is not the answer.

Tyler Curry, senior editor at HIV Equal Online, confronted this reality when he unexpectedly received a positive diagnosis. “Trying to hide your status is like being in the closet again,” he told me. “Now, it was a much smaller closet to wrestle with given that the population of HIV-positive people is smaller, but it was still a new type of closet.” The problem with smaller spaces, though, is that they more frequently induce claustrophobia. A positive HIV diagnosis can be isolating.

Achieving viral suppression requires summoning the courage to get tested and then adhering rigorously to a prescription drug regimen for life. Imminent death is no longer the certain result of HIV. But while the virus has transitioned from “plague” status in the eighties and nineties to a chronic and manageable illness today, we as a society have struggled to catch up in terms of how we perceive the virus.

Fear about how individuals will react at home, discrimination in the workplace, the implications for a future love life and concern for one’s own personal wellbeing are completely understandable responses for a person with HIV.

Still, regardless of how much we empathize with these concerns, a counterproductive tendency exists in both the gay and straight communities. Most of us feel that only those who are HIV positive need to understand the virus, which results in condemnation out of misplaced fear. And, as Curry notes, this can lead people to try to “escape” a positive diagnosis through purposely avoiding testing or hiding their own status from those closest to them.

Despite the presence of antiretroviral drugs (ARTs) on the market for nearly two decades, 44 percent of Americans believe that treatment does nothing to help prevent the spread of HIV. And while the portion of Americans who report knowing someone who died of AIDS or currently has HIV has increased in recent years, only about half of people surveyed in a 2012 study from the Kaiser Foundation report being “very comfortable” working with someone who has HIV or AIDS.

To point out what might seem obvious to some but nevertheless eludes others, unless you are having unprotected sex or sharing needles with someone who is HIV positive, you are not at risk for contraction. Either the workplace is a lot more interesting than I previously thought, or ignorance is a major culprit in the “othering” of HIV-positive individuals.

Misinformation and stigma propagate themselves in many different forms. Regardless of how stigma presents itself, though, we must make a conscious effort to root it out.

Efforts to fight stigmas come in many forms. The easiest place to begin is a linguistic adjustment. Stop describing yourself as “clean” when you talk about your own status. You are either “negative” or “positive,” and “positive” does not always mean the virus is transmittable.

Breaking down HIV laws by state

(Yale Daily News)

Reforms to the judicial system prove a little less accessible to the general public. At least 33 states currently have laws related to exposure and/or transmission of HIV, and five states lack state laws but are on record as prosecuting individuals on HIV-related grounds. Some of these laws are genuinely rooted in preventing the malicious and purposeful spread of HIV, but many are not.

Take for example Texas, which in 2008 convicted a homeless man of assault with a deadly weapon after spitting on a police officer while HIV positive.  The CDC has no record of HIV transmission via saliva. Many states have similarly uninformed statutes, prescribing harsher sentences for HIV-positive people when there is no risk of transmission. These laws should have no place in our country.

Last, we must make every effort to inform the public about the realities of HIV. This is, of course, difficult given our historical predisposition to condemn sex between men. Nevertheless, it is a prerequisite to crafting a society that confronts HIV rather than runs away from it. We must incorporate information on HIV among MSM into our sexual education programs.

We can begin to defeat stigma today. As an exercise, play a modified version of the “What if” game: What if your brother or best friend received a positive diagnosis? Would your response be constructive or destructive? If you think it would be destructive, revisit what you know about HIV and make some necessary changes.

In the fight against the HIV epidemic in America, anything that encourages people not to seek regular testing or to hide their status must go, including our fears and unawareness.

Editor’s picks

In needle exchange programs, users led the charge against HIV

Yale researchers who pioneered New Haven’s Needle Exchange Program are celebrating those who made the program possible — the substance users themselves.

Sex isn't always safe at Yale

Exploring the numbers behind sexual health on campus.