The material in new courses like MUSI 100 is generally unfamiliar to all students, which allows classmates to enter the course on the same base level of musical knowledge, Quinn previously told the News.

But according to composer and violist Jacob Miller ’22, these changes may have made music courses more appealing to students in other majors rather than increase accessibility for music majors. Miller noted that to an extent, classes within the major are inaccessible because they require a background in music theory, which is similar to higher level courses with prerequisites in other majors.

Zayaruznaya said that she has no concern over the major losing its rigor, since students will be more enthusiastic if they are able to choose a course they are passionate about from a wider set of options.

“For music majors, it’s nice to see the music we take seriously, independent of our music education, get represented more in the required curriculum,” Miller said, citing genres including EDM and early jazz.

Introducing different perspectives

The music major’s new course offerings and requirements also strive to expose music students to musical traditions from around the globe, although some say the department does not go far enough.

Quinn said that exposure to music from various places and periods offers a “rigorous challenge” for students studying music. Just as learning a new language can inform a person about another culture’s mentality, studying music from different regions can “expand the limits of musicians’ minds” and change the ways they think about music.

“The world is a big place and time is very long, and to reach out from the very small area that Western classical music covers is a challenge for anybody who does it — and a very rewarding one,” Quinn said.

For example, unlike Western music, Javanese Gamelan — a type of Indonesian traditional ensemble music made up primarily of percussive instruments — is not based on written musical notation. The department offers a class on this type of music: MUSI 232, “Central Javanese Gamelan Ensemble.”

“Music was mostly learned orally, and it’s only sort of recently that notation has become a widely accepted way of learning music,” Tung explained.

Wangermann, who studies opera, took a class called MUSI 491, “Musical Afrofuturisms” to fulfill one of her requirements. She said she had never heard the term “Afrofuturism” before taking class, which was first offered in fall 2020. After taking it, she explained that Afrofuturist artists “mix timelines in order to change or redefine stereotypical narratives surrounding the African continent and people of the African diaspora.”

“I don’t know if I will ever be a part of an Afrofuturist opera, but it definitely informs the way I look at art,” Wangermann said. “I think as musicians we tend to specify and focus on what we want to do early. If you want to compose, you focus on composing; if you want to sing opera, you focus on singing opera. A lot of times, the other opportunities in the world can pass you by because you’re so focused on what you’re trying to do. I think being forced to take the time to expose yourself to new things is really important, and it’s really great that it’s built into this major.”

Wangermann added that being required to study music of different origins is not only important for a musician’s study on the “micro level of classical music,” the focus of most traditional music programs, but also on a “macro level” of human experience.

“Having a broader perspective and learning more about things that [we] don’t immediately understand is incredibly important in this very polarized society that we live in,” Wangermann said. “The more I understand about different types of people or people who have a different experience than I do, the better I am at empathizing with others and talking to people with different perspectives.”

Depth and breadth: Impacts on specialization

Within the music major, students are now offered a wider variety of topics to study, from a broader array of introductory courses to highly specialized upper-level seminars.

According to music professor Brian Kane, this expansion of courses gives students more opportunities to direct their personal musical paths, in contrast with the music major’s earlier requirements that heavily emphasized training in Western classical music.

“Now, we’re much more interested in breadth, and then people can specialize in the way they want to,” Kane said. “It allows people to come through and figure out what they need to study music in a way that’s going to be robust and interesting for them and help carry them on into whatever pursuits they do. We don’t push people into particular channels as much as in the past.”

As an option for students to study a form of music outside of the Western classical tradition, Kane and professor Michael Veal introduced two new historical survey courses on jazz music that majors can use to fulfill a music history requirement. Kane teaches MUSI 380, “Jazz in America, 1900-1960,” and Veal teaches MUSI 381, “Jazz in Transition, 1960-2000.”

“We have room for anybody who’s really interested in studying music with intensity, thought and depth,” Kane said.

But expanding the range and breadth of courses also has a downside. According to music major and peer tutor for the introductory music theory sequence Dani Zanuttini-Frank ’22, encouraging students to take a diverse range of courses can actually diminish students’ ability to specialize. Because the major offers introductory courses on a wider range of topics, students are more disposed to gain a basic knowledge of diverse topics rather than specialize in a single area.

Zanuttini-Frank said that in expanding its array of courses, he feels that the department is providing fewer opportunities for students who share one of his areas of interest — traditional Western music theory — to specialize in the field or gain in-depth knowledge.

Zayaruznaya said that despite some courses not being offered in certain semesters, no course in the department has been removed from the curriculum. She added that with the new major, students can choose to either go for breadth or to specialize.

Quinn echoed Zanuttini-Frank’s statement, saying that demanding breadth in students’ courses of study was a way the department intended to make the curriculum more equitable. Yet he added that in coming years, the department will offer new courses that will be open to qualified undergraduates alongside graduate students — some of which will be upper level music theory courses.

Diversity and representation beyond departmental offerings

Amid recent racial justice protests, music curriculums and performance groups have also begun to make stronger efforts to diversify their musical repertoires. 

Changes in music curriculums have effects that go beyond improving students’ musical skill, Quinn said. According to him, part of the department’s intention behind changing the major’s requirements was to make the major more representative of the “student body as a whole.”

“All of us — performers and audiences — benefit when the music we explore is as diverse as the world we live in,” Glee Club Director Jeffrey Douma, who works with many students in the Department of Music, said. “We have a lot of work to do in the world of choral music, but I think we are seeing a true recognition in our field that we must study and perform a broader and more diverse range of voices.”

Wangermann, who was part of the Opera Theatre of Yale College before graduating last fall semester, said that to ensure the lasting impact of curricula and repertoire changes, the effort must extend beyond departmental offerings.

“Smaller arts organizations need to be on the forefront of making this change,” Wangermann said. “We have the resources, we have the dedication, we have the motivation to make a positive change in the way that classical music works. It’s really important that art represents or reflects the audience. And that starts with what you produce and what you create.”

In exposing musicians to diverse curricula and musical traditions, Kane sees the means to create both better musicians and better humans. Kane explained that since music is an essential characteristic of human nature, exposure to a diverse array of music theory, history and performance is necessary to inculcate better informed attitudes in people.

“Music is in every culture,” Kane said. “Every culture has got its musical practices. And even within any national or regional context, there is a whole diversity of musical practices. Music can do work that other forms of discourse can’t do.”

Marisol Carty | marisol.carty@yale.edu

Correction, April 7: Due to  a copy editing error, a previous version of the story incorrectly stated Marty Tung’s first name. The story has been updated.

Out with the old, in with the new-ish

In 2005, Yale was the only university in the country that did not have a “genuine tenure track,” according to a 2016 review of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tenure Appointment Policy. Not having a “genuine tenure track” meant that tenure was dependent on departmental resources, rather than purely on the merit of the faculty member. It also meant non-tenured faculty members needed to apply separately for a tenured position in a new job search.

In 2007, a new policy went into effect to address the previous plan’s issues. It achieved two goals: First, the new process separated discussions about departmental resources from discussions of tenure. Second, it reduced the “tenure clock” — the probationary period between a tenure-track faculty member’s entrance into the University and their becoming eligible for tenure review — from 10 years to nine years, meaning that faculty would be eligible for tenure sooner. The long probationary period was a common concern for faculty, who worried that other promising faculty would take offers from other universities where they would not have to wait as long before being up for tenure consideration.

In 2016, the University released a new report, along with a new set of policy guidelines. This is the tenure system that Yale currently uses.

In the 2016 system, the tenure clock was again shortened, this time to eight years, with consideration no later than year seven. The old system had five ranks: assistant professor 1 and 2, associate professor on term, associate professor with tenure and tenured professor. But the new system has only four ranks. In keeping with practice at most other universities, the untenured rank of associate professor on term is no longer used at Yale, except for faculty who joined the University prior to 2016 under previous tenure policies. The new system also added an additional fourth-year review process designed to produce substantive, in-depth consideration of and feedback on the faculty member’s work, according to Tamar Gendler, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Some Yale faculty progress through the four ranks through their time at the institution. Other professors come to Yale from an institution where they are already a tenured professor. In those cases, Yale typically hires them into a comparable position, Gendler said.

Since 2014, FAS has hired 263 tenure-track faculty. Of those faculty, 65 percent were hired as assistant professors, while the other 35 percent were hired in a tenured position that carried over from another institution. During this seven-year period, FAS hired an average of approximately 37 tenure-track faculty each year, of which 24 were hired as assistant professors and 13 joined with tenure, according to Gendler.

“On average, during each year of this seven year period, we brought 37 new ladder faculty: 24 new Assistant Professors, and 13 new faculty hired laterally at the tenured level. (Of course, the numbers differ slightly year over year – but this is the average.)”

All aboard the tenure train: How the process works 

Those who are not yet tenured at their previous institution and join Yale on the tenure track often come in with the rank of assistant professor and begin the promotion process during their sixth year of teaching. At any stage of the process, the faculty member can be denied tenure. If that decision is upheld, they will no longer be employed by the University when their contract runs out — which is “at least another full year” after the tenure review occurs, according to Gendler.

The first stage begins with faculty assembling all of their research, writing, evaluations, indications of service, written statements and other material into a “tenure dossier.” Then, the departmental review committee, composed of faculty from the candidate’s department, will solicit evaluations from at least 10 senior scholars in that faculty member’s field — although FAS Senate Chair Matthew Jacobson said the number is typically closer to 12-15.

“My experience with the tenure process for faculty in my [department] has been quite positive,” Tyrone Cannon, department chair of psychology, wrote in an email to the News. “Of course, we have very strong junior faculty and that is the key thing.”

After the scholars’ evaluation, the faculty member’s department will decide if the application can move forward by a simple majority vote. If it does, it moves into a divisional Tenure and Appointments Committee — these committees exist for the humanities, social sciences, biological science, and physical sciences and engineering. The most substantive review of a candidate happens during this stage.

John Mangan, dean of faculty affairs, told the News that these committees are an unusual aspect of Yale’s tenure review.

“At most universities, there is a single committee that oversees all of the academic areas, generally with one or two faculty from each of the broad areas (humanities, social science, etc.),” Mangan wrote in an email to the News. “Yale’s FAS tenure process involves a wider range of faculty than virtually any of our peers.”

Each committee is chaired by Gendler and overseen by the divisional dean or, depending on the field, an area director, as well as roughly a dozen scholars from that division. The tenure voting is done by secret ballot and requires a simple majority to move forward.

If cases are approved, they then move to the Joint Boards of Permanent Officers, made up of all the senior faculty across the FAS. They generally take up five to 15 cases per meeting, which occur “several times per academic year,” according to Mangan.

At the JBPO meeting, Gendler, the FAS dean, would present the votes from all previous stages, and the department chair would describe the candidate. After a discussion, the JBPO would vote on the candidate.

Candidates that receive a two-thirds majority vote then move up to the Yale Corporation for final approval.

Mangan wrote that “it is extremely rare (indeed, unprecedented) for a tenure case, once approved by a divisional committee, to be overturned by either the JBPO or the Corporation.”

At every level, the voting is done by secret ballot. According to Mangan, no faculty member has access to any of the materials used in the tenure process deliberations.

The entire process can take anywhere from six months to a full academic year. Candidates typically submit their dossier in the summer, and the majority of tenure decisions are granted in the spring, although they can technically happen whenever.

If successfully promoted, professors typically stay at the rank of associate professor with tenure for three to five years, after which they may be considered for promotion to the rank of full professor, according to Gendler.

If ladder faculty are denied tenure, they can appeal the decision through a formal complaint process in which they submit a letter to the provost within 45 days of the tenure decision or other action that gave rise to the complaint, according to the Faculty Handbook.

If the provost decides that the complaint merits review, it will be forwarded to the Faculty Review Committee, a standing committee of senior faculty with members appointed yearly by the provost. Then the panel will deliberate on the complaint in a closed session. If the majority of the panel votes to adopt their recommendations, the panel reports back to the provost for further review.

The provost ultimately makes the final decision, which is delivered to all relevant parties in writing.

Eighty percent of faculty who joined Yale as assistant professors between 1990 and 2010 and stayed at Yale for the entirety of the tenure track period were granted tenure. But only around a third of the faculty who joined as assistant professors became tenured faculty, according to statistics provided to the News by Gendler. The discrepancy is attributed to a number of faculty leaving the University before they were eligible for tenure consideration.

Tenure: The good, the bad and the ugly 

Tenure in North America was initially developed in the 20th century to protect academic freedom, with an added benefit of job security. A tenured professor, unlike instructional faculty, cannot be fired without cause. If a tenured professor commits a crime or fails to show up to class, that could be cause for termination. But a tenured professor cannot get fired for publishing a risky or controversial research project or pursuing a project that might take years to complete, which allows professors more freedom to research their interests without fear of it affecting their job stability. 

“A tenured professor can in theory say f— off to the president without fear of retribution,” Jacobson wrote in an email to the News. “Very few do that, but an untenured professor couldn’t even consider it.”

A decade lost to the tenure process

As the counseling strategies at Professor Shore’s son’s elementary school demonstrate, the tenure process can also be intensely stressful for faculty members.

“You are being judged by senior colleagues both within and without the university, and your case can get shot down anywhere along the way,” Jacobson wrote in an email to the News. “And if it does, you get fired. And if you get fired, your reputation might be stained forever.”

Yale awards tenure to FAS scholars who “stand among the foremost leaders in the world in a broad field of knowledge. It is reserved for candidates whose published work significantly extends the horizons of their discipline(s),” according to the FAS tenure criteria.

According to Shore, who initially was a tenure-track faculty member while at Indiana University, these broad qualifications are in contrast with the more straightforward tenure qualifications at other schools, such as IU. Faculty there “has a pretty good idea” before entering the tenure promotion process whether or not they have the necessary qualifications.

“Elite universities consider themselves elite because they have the best faculty and recruit the best students,” Shore wrote. “That means that if they think there’s someone better out there, they want that better person.”

For Brian Scholl, a professor in the Department of Psychology, this high bar for tenure was “liberating” — because he said he did not expect to ultimately receive tenure at Yale, he spent more time focusing on his research than trying to establish relationships with colleagues or otherwise building his tenure dossier.

He called his tenure promotion an “unexpected surprise.”

But Shore considered the process to be a strenuous one in which junior faculty members struggle to form relationships with senior members of their department who will, at one point, decide if they should receive tenure — even though Yale’s probationary period is now more on par with peer institutions than it was before 2007.

For junior faculty, the tenure process takes the better half of a decade at best — a decade that, even if tenure is ultimately granted, can leave them “shells of the people they had been,” Shore said.

“You never feel secure (should you buy a house or an apartment?),” Shore wrote. “You constantly think about pleasing your senior colleagues and outside letter writers and stop taking intellectual risks. You might not read your students’ papers as carefully as you want to, because every moment you spend on them is a moment you’re not spending on your own writing. You might decide not to have children (how can you take the time to have a baby when the tenure clock is ticking? A year doesn’t nearly compensate for the fact that you go from having 24 hours at your disposal to having zero), or to radically outsource the care of your children (every moment you spend with them is a moment you’re not working on your research), and so on. I’ve seen divorced colleagues lose shared custody of a child when they don’t get tenure and have to look for a job in a different state.”

Gendler declined to comment on the stress associated with the tenure process and the comparison between Yale’s tenure qualifications and those of peer institutions.

David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses professor of modern Jewish history, said that despite its issues, tenure is a valuable aspect of academia that “you couldn’t have the system of the American research university without.”

But for Mohamed, tenure as a whole “is so completely broken” that the only solution is “far-reaching reform.” He proposed a system in which there are two ranks — instructional and research — that both protect job security and academic freedom.

“The system of tenure isn’t that old, it’s really a 20th century phenomenon,” Mohamed said. “It doesn’t have deep roots in academic life, and it can be altered. It is within our power to do that.”

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, tenure-track faculty had the option to extend their “tenure clock” by one year. In a typical year, tenure-track parents to a newborn or newly adopted child can receive a one-year extension as well.

Madison Hahamy | madison.hahamy@yale.edu

Data visualization by Phoebe Liu.

‘It’s terrifying’: Students say racism runs rampant at School of Nursing

In interviews with the News, students criticized outdated curriculum, offensive remarks by guest lecturers and professors and a lack of diversity among students and staff.

Story by Julia Brown, Beatriz Horta, Zaporah Price

Cover photo by Nick Tabio

Published on October 29, 2020

Even though Tayisha Saint Vil NUR ’23 has been at Yale School of Nursing for less than a semester, she already feels unsafe as a Black student at the school. 

“It’s terrifying,” Saint Vil told the News. “This feels like a really hostile environment for Black and brown students to learn.”

Just two months before Saint Vil arrived on campus, the School of Nursing committed to improving that environment — and addressing the “racism that happened right here.” In a June 18 statement to the nursing school community, Dean Ann Kurth promised to be “intentional and accountable” in learning from the school’s failings and helping YSN “tap into the true ethos of our school.”

“We must recognize that without structural and institutional transformation, YSN will continue to perpetuate inequities and miss critical opportunities to fight against the health implications of racism and improve the health of all marginalized communities in the United States,” she wrote.

Kurth’s statement came one year after a professor asked a student, “Are you saying my exams are racist?” after the student expressed concerns over BIPOC retention at a town hall. The year before, a guest lecturer gave a presentation on how to spot dermatological conditions — without sharing how to identify those conditions on Black skin. 

According to 19 students — and a collection of emails, instructional materials and other documents obtained by the News — those are not isolated incidents, but rather emblematic of the culture at the West Campus school.

In interviews with the News, students criticized outdated curriculum, offensive remarks by guest lecturers and professors and a lack of diversity among students and staff. They said that the administration has failed to adequately address these issues, and that institutional channels — including an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion established in 2015 — do not provide adequate recourse for student complaints. Raven Rodriguez, who was hired in 2019 as director of diversity, equity and inclusion, resigned abruptly last week, criticizing an “oppressive status quo” at the school.

Black students, said Sola Stamm NUR ’21, quickly become aware that the program is “academically and culturally” built for their white peers. They “fall through the cracks” academically and socially, she said, and the School of Nursing leaves them to fend for themselves.

More than 220 students attended a forum on Monday set up to address a student petition calling for a full-time faculty member dedicated to DEI issues. Students brought their complaints to Kurth at the forum.

“I do believe we have to do better; we can do better — despite all legitimate concerns I really am committed to seeing YSN becoming a better place,” Kurth told students at the forum.

But students told Kurth that she has not proven herself up to the task.

“It’s terrifying. This feels like a really hostile environment for Black and brown students to learn.”

—Tayisha Saint Vil NUR ’23

OUTDATED INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS 

Five nursing students told the News that they were initially attracted to the school because of its social justice-oriented advertising. For example, the application requires an essay regarding students’ interpretation of the School of Nursing’s mission, “better health for all people.”

But according to Emily Brown NUR ’22, Cameron McCaugherty NUR ’22 and Saint Vil, the school’s branding is misleading.

“[The tagline] does not apply to their students in the slightest,” Brown said. “And I would even argue it doesn’t apply to our future patients, because the education that we receive is marginalizing people of color, particularly Black people and transgender folks.”

Five students cited a 2018 dermatology presentation by guest lecturer Lindita Vinca — a certified nurse practitioner invited by School of Nursing professor Deborah Fahs — that included “hundreds of slides” without “a single example of a single dermatologic condition on skin that wasn’t white,” according to Billie Campion NUR ’21. Nursing lecturer Patrice O’Neill-Wilhelm invited Vinca to deliver another lecture in 2019 — an invitation that two students criticized in interviews with the News. Fahs, O’Neill-Wilhelm and Vinca did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“If you are only trained to recognize skin conditions on white skin, they can be really easy to miss on Black skin,” Campion said. “Besides the fact that this was a huge oversight, it was a thing that never occurred to the faculty for that class … and it never occurred to them that we might want to know what a skin condition looked like on Black skin.”

Students also raised concerns about curriculum developed and delivered by faculty members themselves. Professors have taught that race is a risk factor for certain diseases — a theory that has long been contested — and failed to acknowledge the root causes of racial disparities in health outcomes, students say.

For example, professor Lisa Meland taught in her “Introduction to Pharmacology” lecture last year that the populations at greatest risk for primary hypertension include “African Americans, [and] Mexican Americans,” according to lecture slides obtained by the News.

“We’ve heard lecture after lecture listing anti-Black rhetoric, for example that being Black is a risk factor for hypertension … without any elaboration on the reasons why someone might be at higher risk,” Genevieve Lipari NUR ’22 wrote in an email to the News. “When asked to elaborate, many faculty have replied, ‘I don’t know,’ or even worse, attributed it to differences in metabolism or some other biological difference which we know has no basis because race is a social construct.”

Brown said that these so-called risk factors are actually associated with inherent racism in the health care industry — which the School of Nursing curriculum fails to acknowledge, students say.

In a video obtained by the News, nursing lecturer Patrice O’Neill-Wilhelm said she “really cannot” think of any examples in which race was medically relevant during a lecture on trauma-informed care.

“[The tagline] does not apply to their students in the slightest. And I would even argue it doesn’t apply to our future patients, because the education that we receive is marginalizing people of color, particularly Black people and transgender folks.”

—Emily Brown NUR ’22

“Patrice was like ‘No, I don’t have any examples’ so I was like, ‘Well I’ve got a ton,’” Ashleigh Evans NUR ’23 told the News. “I start going and I’m like, ‘There is Tuskegee syphilis and John Hopkins and forced sterilization — there are so many examples to choose from,’ and [then] she cuts me off.”

As confirmed by the video, O’Neill-Wilhelm thanked Evans for her contributions during class but asked her to give other students time to speak. Evans was only allowed to continue giving her thoughts at the end of class after two white students spoke up on Evans’ behalf.

Neither Meland nor O’Neill-Wilhelm responded to multiple requests for comment.

For her part, Kurth pointed to the school’s mission — “better health for all people” — in her June email and outlined a curriculum review as one of eight initial actions.

“We reject the use of race as a proxy to make clinical predictions and support racial terminology in the biological sciences only as a political or socioeconomic category to study racism and the structural inequities that produce health disparities in marginalized, underrepresented, and underserved people,” Kurth wrote.

Still, according to Rodriguez, racism in the medicine and nursing curriculum was the core complaint she heard from students during her time as DEI director.

CONVERSATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

Curriculum is just one part of the problem, students said, citing multiple instances of offensive remarks in the classroom.

Two students told the News that O’Neill-Wilhelm said in a lecture that in her hometown, “All Nepali people work at Dunkin’ Donuts.” O’Neill-Wilhelm did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Four students expressed discomfort about a guest lecturer invited by O’Neill-Wilhelm, Aron Rose, who is an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine. According to a recording obtained by the News, Rose said in a lecture that “the Argyll Robertson pupil is called the prostitute’s pupil. It’s kind of cute, I remember this as a resident, because it accommodates, but does not react. Get it? Like a prostitute? Good.”

In an email to the News, Rose explained that the Argyll Robertson pupil was “historically called the prostitute’s pupil,” serving as a “mnemonic for medical students.”

Students also said that Rose pointed to Asian nursing students in the room and talked about their eye shape during the same lecture. One student, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution, expressed concerns to Rose at the time and later emailed LaRon Nelson, who at the time was leading the DEI office as associate dean of global health and equity.

“The Asian students in the class were in fact actually publicly shamed and targeted when he chose to point us out for our lack of double eyelids in front of the whole class,” the email read. “As I’m sure everyone must know, not all Asian people have the same eye shape, and many Asians, including a large population of South Asians, and including myself, do have double eyelids.”

Rose told the News that course instructors had asked him to demonstrate how to flip the upper lid and remove a foreign body from the eye. To do so painlessly and effectively, certain anatomic landmarks such as the upper lid fold — which he said is present in “some patients but not in others” — must be identified.

“While I cannot take responsibility for others’ feelings or how they might interpret the information I aim to impart, I regret any offence taken,” he wrote in an email to the News. “Working with and treating people of multiple ethnicities worldwide is a privilege and a responsibility I take very seriously. I try my best to be sensitive to (and respectful of) all kinds of differences, respectfully acknowledging the numerous variations in humans — be they anatomical or emotional.”

After this incident, students complained about Rose, who was scheduled to give a talk in another professor’s class within the month. Nelson told the News that he looked into student complaints concerning Rose’s comments and met with him about them.

Kurth told the News that when dealing with student complaints on faculty and guest lecturers, the administration attempts to find ways to “educate the offending party” before taking serious action.

“Does it look like [there is] any willingness to acknowledge the harm and to improve?” Kurth said. “If so, then we can facilitate a conversation — if that is desired and consented to. That’s one example of an intervention. If not, it might need to be a very forced conversation with the guest lecturer or faculty member if you will … and then [the] consequence being non-engagement in the school.”

In Rose’s case, it was “clear” that the lecturer was not going to “reflect [or] self-educate,” Kurth told the News. He was not invited back to give his scheduled lecture.

Kurth’s June 18 email outlined plans for “anti-racism education and capacity-skills building” among instructors and students, to be implemented within the next six months. The school also plans to include anti-racism and DEI criteria in course and instructor evaluations starting in the 2021 cycle.

DIVERSITY OF FACULTY AND STUDENTS

In addition to concerns about individual professors, students criticized the makeup of School of Nursing faculty at large and brought up those concerns at Monday’s forum with Dean Kurth.

According to the Office of Institutional Research, there were 25 tenured and tenure-track faculty members out of a total of 97 faculty members at the school during the 2019-20 academic year. On Monday, students asked Kurth how many of those faculty members are Black.

She gave one name: LaRon Nelson.

“Most Black people are in support staff positions,” Shantrice King NUR ’22 told the News. “We need an entire overhaul of our administration. … [We need] a new structure, a new way of thinking about this [and] a new way of working.”

The problem is not just with hired faculty, students said, but also the guest lecturers they invite to the classroom.

“Our guest speakers are predominantly friends or colleagues of our white faculty which perpetuates a culture of learning from only white practitioners, while we know this is not representative of the broader landscape of providers,” Lipari wrote in an email to the News. “It prioritizes the learning of white students who can more easily identify with the providers and perpetuates power dynamics that elevate white knowledge.”

“Most Black people are in support staff positions. We need an entire overhaul of our administration … [We need] a new structure, a new way of thinking about this [and] a new way of working.”

—Shantrice King NUR ’22

Kurth told the News that the nursing school has “made great strides” over the last three years, increasing the number of Black and Latinx faculty on the clinical side by seven.

That progress, according to Kurth, is not limited to faculty. She wrote in a Monday email to the School of Nursing community that the 2020 cohort of students was “the most diverse in YSN history.” The administration, she added, has a “Pursuit of Progress” fund for BIPOC students and programming. 

University Provost Scott Strobel echoed Kurth’s sentiments in his own Monday email to the nursing community, stating that BIPOC students compose 31 percent of the student body. In an interview with the News, Kurth described the increase in BIPOC students as “not as far as we want it to be,” but that it was “a step in the right direction.”

Still, students criticize a lack of representation at the school. For example, there were only two Indigenous students and one Indigenous faculty member at the School of Nursing in the 2019-20 academic year, the most recent year for which OIR data is available.

“Indigenous people are kind of just completely left out of the conversation,” Jill Langan NUR ’21 told the News. “The only real support or conversations I’ve had that are substantive around Indigenous health care or focusing on Indigeneity in health has come from peer-to-peer conversations.”

2019 TOWN HALL

In her June 18 statement regarding anti-racism at the School of Nursing, Kurth apologized for “all the times” that BIPOC members of the community were “hurt and let down” because of the school’s failure to effectively address racism.

“Recent examples,” Kurth wrote in the statement, “include incidents that occurred at a Jan. 2019 town hall with the [Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing (GEPN) Program] faculty and students.”

According to McCaugherty and Campion, it was unclear to students in the GEPN Program — the first-year program at the school — what circumstances necessitated this town hall meeting in the first place.

Ana Svibruck NUR ’21 said the meeting started with vague comments and “random feedback” from students about the GEPN Program. After a returning GEPN student declared their support for a remediation policy — which would alter an existing policy that prevented students from continuing in the program if they fail an exam — the conversation started to get confrontational, according to Svibruck.

When Svibruck asked about retention rates for students of color in particular, she and Leonne Tanis NUR ’21 recounted in interviews, Honan asked “Are you saying my exams are racist?”

Kurth told the News that she has had “multiple conversations” with Honan related to the town hall.

“What was happening was that students were expressing their concerns and experiences and every time a person of color spoke, a person from the faculty would directly attack them personally back in response, and it was really bizarre,” McCaugherty said. 

Tanis, who is Black, told the News that she was publicly mocked by former School of Nursing professor Shannon Pranger during the town hall. According to Tanis, Pranger “put her hand above her head” and “started snapping” at her — in what Tanis called a “stereotypical impersonation of a Black woman.”

Campion and Tanis added that Pranger became defensive during the town hall.

“She screamed at [those present] that her husband could be Black, we don’t know her, and we don’t know what her family is like,” Campion said. “We were well acquainted with the fact that her husband was a white person.”

Kurth told the News in an interview that Shannon Pranger is “no longer here.” Kurth did not specify whether or not this was related to the town hall incident. Pranger did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

After the town hall, Tanis took her grievance to the Provost’s Office, where Director of the Office of Institutional Equity and Access Valarie Stanley conducted an informal investigation. Tanis also met with Kurth, who personally apologized to her, but Tanis felt that wasn’t enough.

Kurth’s public apology — in her anti-racist statement this summer — didn’t come until a year after the fact.

MONDAY’S FORUM

“We need to take action. We need policy changes, because we can talk about racism all day, all year [and] for centuries, but that’s not enough. ”

—Tayisha Saint Vil NUR ’23

Student frustrations came to a head on Monday during a forum with Kurth that aimed to address students’ petition protesting administrative changes in the DEI office. More than 220 nursing students attended — students pressed Kurth not just about their petition but about the School of Nursing’s culture as a whole and her lack of progress in improving it.

“They keep on missing the mark and actively not doing the job,” Sola Stamm NUR ’21 said in an interview. “It’s so unacceptable to see the administration refusing to confront its anti-Black racism instead of expanding and being better teachers, better health care providers and a better institution.”

In addition to raising specific concerns about administrative changes — including Kurth taking the DEI office under her purview — students asked Kurth what grade she believes the nursing community would give her for her response to racism.

“I think it’s clear that you all would say I do not deserve a good score, and I’m willing to hear that,” Kurth said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Saint Vil asked Kurth why she believes many Black students refuse to meet with her, and why those students who do express “trauma, frustration and pain.”

After a pause, Kurth responded that she feels there is a sense that there has been “harm,” and that the harm has not been addressed quickly enough. She added that her goal is to “do better with that.”

“As a community if we can’t have dialogue, we’re not going to be able to move forward,” Kurth said. “We have got to move together in making [this] a better place for our Black students.”

Later in the forum, Co-President of the Yale School of Nursing Student Government Organization Zoe Feinstein NUR ’22 interrupted Kurth to point out that she was using “a lot of passive voice” and “a lot of ‘we’” when students felt that she was the one who had authority.

When Kurth tried to hand the floor over to Nelson, students said they wanted Kurth to speak about these issues.

“I believe in ‘we’ and not just ‘I’,” Kurth responded. “There is a ‘we’ here. We have set up structures like the IDEAS council, like the curriculum committee that has student representation, like now having representatives in GEPN. … That’s the way that we make change.” 

Still, students do not think that dialogue is enough.

“We need to take action,” Saint Vil said at the forum. “We need policy changes, because we can talk about racism all day, all year [and] for centuries, but that’s not enough.”

Clarification, Oct. 29: A previous version of this article implied that all 220 students in attendance at the Monday forum brought complaints against Kurth. The article has been updated to clarify that not all 220 attendees brought complaints to the forum.

First years believe Yale can handle COVID-19, according to survey

Story by John Besche

Data Analysis and Visualizations by Ashley Qin

Cover Photo by Daniel Zhao

Published on September 17, 2020

In an anonymous survey sent out to the class of 2024, first-year students largely showed confidence in the University’s COVID-19 protocols despite the ongoing pandemic and no unified directives to combat it at the federal level.

The survey was sent to 1,207 students in the class of 2024 on Aug. 31. It closed on Sept. 2 with 471 responses, a 39 percent response rate.

Yale, like many college campuses, shut down in March to prepare for an ongoing pandemic that has since killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Yale ultimately decided on July 1 that it would partially reopen with stringent public safety protocols in place, raising the possibility of an outbreak in the fall.

Before the semester began, outbreaks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Syracuse University and the University of Notre Dame made national headlines, instilling concerns among some incoming first years — 46 percent said these outbreaks made them nervous about coming to campus. One first year commented that public health concerns kept him from traveling to New Haven altogether.

“The pandemic is the sole reason that I have decided to study remotely this semester,” Zach Auster ’24 said. “I was not going to endanger my health and the safety of others by traveling cross country. The recent outbreaks at other campuses only strengthened my confidence in that decision as they showed that no matter how rigorous the protocols in place, coronavirus outbreaks can and will spread on campuses.”

First years said by and large that Yale’s protocols are fair, with only 7.5 percent saying they were “too strict” and 9 percent answering “not strict enough.”

Jamarc Simon ’24 said that he does not think Yale’s protocols are too strict, but “just right” because —per the rules — students are tested twice weekly and can go out into New Haven.

For all students enrolled and living in New Haven, twice weekly COVID-19 testing is mandatory, and protocols limit the size of social gatherings. Even with these measures in place, 6.2 percent of respondents thought it was likely that they will get COVID-19.

“I work with the University of Utah’s COVID response, so I have seen firsthand that people who never expected to get COVID end up getting it, and that strict measures are necessary to keep the spread of the virus to a minimum,” said Gabe Ransom ’24. “I think that it is best to always assume that you are infectious and take the appropriate steps to protect those around you with that in mind.”

Auster added that Yale’s policy lacks a “true line in the sand” for violations of its community compact. In his opinion, students who forgo masks or choose to party should be sent home as these choices have wider implications for public health.

Still, 86 percent of first years said that they believed if they were to get sick, Yale would have the resources to adequately care for them.

15 percent of respondents think it is “highly unlikely” that they will become infected with the virus — more than twice the percentage of those who believe they will likely get COVID-19.

The majority of respondents were confident in Yale’s protocols and attitudes toward social distancing: 53 percent of respondents found it “unlikely” that they would contract the virus. Still, students will now have more freedom as they were released from arrival quarantine last week, creating more opportunities for exposure to the virus.

Kesi Wilson ’21, a Davenport FroCo, said there has been “recklessness as much as there has been adherence to policies,” and that first years will occasionally congregate in large groups on Cross Campus or in front of residential colleges without masks.

“In those cases, FroCos across colleges have been mobilizing to break them up,” Wilson said.
“Overall though … it really comes down to the level of individuals and how much they feel a communal responsibility to follow the rules in order to keep people safe.”

Monitoring adherence to COVID restrictions comes as an additional obligation to FroCos, whose job even in non-pandemic times is primarily to keep first years safe. These efforts are aided by the newly appointed Public Health Education for Peers, or PHEPs, in each residential college.

One FroCo commented on the social implications of the COVID protocols they are asked to enforce.

“It’s definitely hard to essentially tell a first year to put their social life on hold, but we have seen first years violate some parts of the community compact — thankfully usually at less serious levels,” said Berkeley FroCo Brian Lin ’21. “The current situation is a matter of public health, and we try to make that very clear. it’s a collective effort to keep everyone safe, and thus, we face collective consequences.”

Yale has reported 12 student cases of COVID-19 since Aug. 1.

Most first years believe it is unlikely that they will become infected with COVID-19. (David Zheng)

UP CLOSE:
The new Yale community

Story by Alayna Lee

Cover Photo by Yale News

Published on

Strolling Cross Campus at this time of year typically treats passers-by to a warm sight — frisbee games, prospective students touring the grounds, friends sitting together on the grass with pages of reading. This semester, the front lawn of Sterling Memorial Library looks the same at first glance, with people scattered on the grass and lawn games abound. 

But on closer inspection, you notice the extra benches placed six feet apart and the masks covering students’ faces. Signs remind students to “practice social distancing” and to “stay at least two arms’ length away from others.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way Yale functions this semester. Remote classes and restrictions on social gatherings have limited how students are able to interact with one another. Yale required all enrolled students returning to New Haven to sign a community compact that delineates what is and is not allowed regarding social interactions and outlines potential administrative action in case of a violation. For the first two weeks after their initial arrival, on-campus students could not leave their respective residential colleges — making what is typically touted as a central pillar of Yale community life into an insulated bubble for the start of term. And while Yale’s strong student life has long been a selling point for the University, both student leaders and administrators are keenly aware of how the coronavirus pandemic challenges that strength.

“How we go about maintaining a vibrant social life at Yale is definitely a question that does not have any sufficient answers at the moment,” Yale College Council President Kahlil Greene ’21 told the News. “One of my FroCo friends said that he polled his kids to see who feared they would end the year without a single close friend. All of them raised their hands.”

PLAYING IT BY EAR

(Yale News)

University President Peter Salovey emailed the Yale community on July 1 to announce Yale’s fall plans: a semester of primarily remote instruction, with an invitation to live on a socially-distant, pandemic-adapted campus extended to first years, juniors and seniors. This decision gave the University a little less than two months to completely transform in-person social events and activities to an online format. 

In the period following the announcement, administrators and student leaders reimagined highly-attended programs like pre-orientation and the annual Extracurricular Bazaar to take place remotely. For example, outdoor experiences like the First-Year Outdoor Orientation Trips suddenly had to find a way to convert a backpacking and bonding experience into something that could happen over the internet.

Yale College Dean Marvin Chun told the News that his office had modified “almost every event” to comply with COVID-19 requirements and thanked the staff and students who helped for their “ingenuity and flexibility.”

“Most community-building activities [will] continue online, and many colleges have added programming to engage students during this challenging arrival quarantine period,” Chun said.

Long before coronavirus hit, Chun made improving residential college life one of his priorities as Dean. He told the News that this aspect of Yale will continue to be important, and that virtual meetings will allow students to remain close to one another — even while physically far apart. According to Chun, the work of the heads of colleges, deans, staff and student leaders will help maintain the residential colleges as a “central circle” for students.

Still, Head of Pauli Murray College Tina Lu told the News that her college will largely have to “play it by ear.” She said that they’re planning on taking advantage of their outdoor space and courtyard to maintain the residential college community, in addition to “experimenting with virtual spaces.”

According to Lu, large in-person events will have to wait until public health guidelines deem it appropriate and that they’re “still working it out.” But, she said, the vast majority of their students seem to sympathize with the college’s administration and understand that they’re doing their best to make the most of what they can feasibly accomplish. 

“I can’t wait to be able to throw another dance in real life, I can’t tell you how much I look forward to that,” Lu said. “But I also know that we can’t do that this year. We know that that’s just kind of a fact of our existence.”

Lu also said that she’s optimistic about the future of the residential colleges in the long-run. She noted that while this “is not the way” classes and residential college life should work, eventually they’ll both return. 

“I think it’s like acapella,” she said. “I’m not worried about the long-term future of acapella. People love acapella music, and it’s [going] to be back. The colleges will be back … Yale’s going to be Yale, it’s going to be fine in the long haul. I’m sure of that, but in the short haul, we’re going to have to make some accommodations  and cut some corners, because we all recognize that we have to keep one another in shape.”

According to YCC Events Director candidate Chloe Adda ’22 — who is running unopposed — she plans to  adhere to all necessary health guidelines when planning events for the year. She noted that this would likely mean all events will have to be virtual. 

Far from dismayed,  she told the News that maintaining Yale’s social events is “completely viable,” adding that  she encourages students to attend online events. Still, she acknowledged that virtual platforms are typically “awkward” at first. 

“I think the main challenge and focus of putting on such events lies in encouraging students to be open to socializing via Zoom and other video platforms,” Adda said. “I believe many of us still feel awkward over video-call applications such as Zoom given the sudden change from in-person to digital.”

EXTRA ANXIETY

(Yale News)

When Zoe Kanga ’24 first arrived at Yale, she was not allowed to be accompanied by her parents and was forced to stay in her room. During the 48 hours it took for her COVID-19 test results to be released, she told the News she felt “trapped” and “isolated.”

The News reached out to each of the first years running for a seat on the First-Year Class Council. The nine that responded, including Kanga, explained their transitions to Yale and expressed different views on how  Yale should incorporate first years into the student community. 

Kanga said that at first, her transition was “extremely difficult,”which sparked worry about the overall school year. Until now, she said, she hasn’t felt “like a true Yale student” since she hasn’t been able to leave college grounds. But she noted that the arrival quarantine helped strengthen her connection to her residential college and helped her get to know her peers. 

The eight other first years interviewed by the News all said they feel especially close to their peers in their residential colleges. But Adia Keene ’24 also said that there seems to be a “divide” between the first years and the rest of the student body, mostly due to the arrival quarantine.

Social divides are especially sharp for students who are enrolled remotely, many of whom have had to invest significant energy into making friends online. William An ’24 noted that he feels connected to the Yale community through his classes, participating in FOOT and a groupchat made specifically for remote students. Still, he noted that he is had some “unique challenges” as a remotely enrolled first year and that transitioning to Yale had “not been a walk in the park by any means.”  

Lu also noted that because of the arrival quarantine, she feels that the first years have been able to “really get to know each other.” She added that they seem to be spending a lot of time with each other online, outdoors and while social-distancing. Still, she said that the quarantine was “definitely a really, really big fact in all of [their] lives.”

“The transition has gone as well as expected, and some first years actually feel as though the transition was helped by the two-week quarantine,” said Grayson Phillips ’24. “…The start of college was primarily centered on the residential college and meeting your classmates. People that would otherwise have gone four years without having a meaningful conversation now have real connections, which was only possible because we were stuck inside together. While colleges are tight, it’s been hard to feel like a part of Yale itself at times, because without classes or the freedom to roam it doesn’t really feel like you’re a part of something bigger.”

First-year counselors, the friendly faces during the opening days of orientation, have worked to create a strong community around the residential college — where most first years spent two weeks upon arrival.

Unlike in years past, all first-year counselors held meetings with their students virtually. Grace Hopper First-Year Counselor Abdah Adam ’21 said that although it was  at first frustrating to not see them in person, her group ultimately became very comfortable with each other. 

According to Timothy Dwight first-year counselor Nishanth Krishnan ’21, there is a “collective effort” to help first years find their place at Yale, but everyone is aware that the public health guidelines create new restrictions and a “new reality” for Yalies. For example, he noted that many of the places where people typically meet other Yale students are “far less available for making meaningful connections,” like in class or in student organizations.

Several of the first years who spoke to the News said that Yale should attempt to host responsible, in-person social events as much as possible. Phillips said that he recognizes that in-person events would exclude remotely-enrolled students. The University should work to accommodate remote students and prepare students for a completely virtual semester should they be required to go home early, he said. 

Still, the large number of virtual interactions has “[taken] a toll” on students, Phillips added. An overreliance on Zoom, he said, would encourage students to attend unofficial and unsafe events. 

“I think that it’s extremely important that we still have a non-virtual social life while on campus,” Kanga said. “If it gets to a point that we are only interacting with people online, there is no difference between us being on campus or being remote. We all chose to take the risk by coming here, and I think that we should still have modified versions of existing traditions.”

“If it gets to a point that we are only interacting with people online, there is no difference between us being on campus or being remote. We all chose to take the risk by coming here, and I think that we should still have modified versions of existing traditions.”

—Zoe Kanga ’24

DISCONNECTED, BUT CONNECTED

But while first years adjust to life on campus, sophomores — the only class barred from campus for the fall semester — are establishing homes beyond Yale. 

Luka Silva ’23 said he was at first “shocked” and “mad” upon hearing Yale’s decision. Now, he recognizes why administrators made that choice, even if he’s not “sure [if he] really agrees with their decision.” 

Silva — who’s enrolled remotely from home — told the News that since everything is online, it’s easier for him to stay connected to his friends and student groups at school, despite his initial fears. He added that it’s easier since everything at Yale is online — if he were forced to be virtual while there were in-person or hybrid activities, he would feel much more “severed” from the Yale community.

“I do think it’s been tough to connect to classmates in zoom classes though; in person you can talk to your neighbors and make little comments  and stuff while the class is going on or when you’re walking in/out,” Silva said. “I think virtual definitely just makes making new friends tougher, but works fairly well with allowing me to stay connected to the friends I already have.”

Isabella Huang ’24, a Production & Design staffer for the News, said that she chose to take a leave of absence since she didn’t see the value in paying tuition for online classes, in addition to not wanting to “miss out” on typical campus life.  

She added that because most of her friends are also not in New Haven, she still feels connected to Yale’s community. Since most of her extracurricular activities have continued to happen online, she said that she’s still able to feel involved.

“I don’t think I’m missing out on too much if I’m joining the same Zoom sessions from home,” she said.

While the sophomore class is slated to return to campus for the spring semester, first years must return home and complete the academic year remotely. Chun explained that the decision about class restrictions for first years and sophomores, although difficult, was necessary — since all students needed a single bedroom, the campus would not be able to house both classes at one.

To that end, deans and residential college heads had to redo every housing assignment, making it imperative that students decide weeks before term whether they would live in the dorms. Only after administrators knew who planned to return in the first place could they assign first year students to their residential colleges.

“I regret that we are unable to house sophomores in the fall and first years in the spring,” he said. “However, reducing the density of housing was an essential requirement to bring students back to campus … Every step got delayed in a cascade. I’m grateful for the students’ patience and understanding.”

Also unique to this year is the unusual amount of students living off-campus compared to years past. Yale Director of Media Relations Karen Peart told the News last week that only 36 percent of on-campus housing capacity is filled, meaning that the number of students living off-campus has increased by 79 percent. 

Ashley Dreyer ’22 told the News that she chose to live off-campus because it allowed her to live with her close friends while still seeing other people via socially-distanced get-togethers. 

For Siddarth Shankar ’22, living off-campus seemed like the safer and more affordable option. He added that while living on-campus would have given him less control over communal spaces and food options, he’s now able to choose who he interacts with. 

“I still feel connected to the Yale community, but the community looks and feels different than it did in the past,” he said. “The lack of extracurricular involvement and activities this semester is definitely something that I am missing a little bit. I rarely venture onto campus except for my twice-weekly testing appointments and I’ll still remain wary of being in such close proximity to many other students as facilities begin to open up.”

YCC Vice-Presidential candidate Matthew Murillo ’22 said he was “grateful” that he could afford to live off-campus with the room and board refund Yale provides students receiving financial aid. Still, he noted that some of his peers on financial aid found it difficult to secure off-campus housing. 

ILLICIT ACTIVITIES

For much of the summer, administrators feared what many students love: large gatherings — now in violation of both the community compact and public health guidelines. Recently, several colleges around the country — like the University of North Carolina and the University of Notre Dame — have transitioned to online classes after reopening for the fall due to COVID-19 outbreaks stemming from large parties.

Three first years and two juniors who requested anonymity for fear of punishment told the News that they had recently been to a party, in suites and off-campus spaces respectively. Although the parties were less than 10 people in each case, the events still violated Yale’s 14-day arrival quarantine. 

“It’s just hard after not seeing people for so long not to socialize in groups,” one of the first-years said. “What did Yale expect to happen?”

Phillips said that while he doesn’t condone suite parties, he thinks “some willful neglect from the administration” could be beneficial, to a certain extent.

“Groups technically breaking Yale guidelines regarding suite guests but remaining relatively small [around 10] present a lesser risk to the safety of the community,” he wrote in an email to the News, “and by allowing kids to ‘get away with partying’ in a lower risk manner, the administration can avoid large-scale gatherings replete with the sharing of bottles and other activities with high risks of transmission.”

An told the News that many students chose to enroll remotely because they were worried about students not following through with the regulations. The administration should take suite parties and similar matters seriously, he added. Kenan Collignon ’24 similarly said that if students do not heed warnings by administration, “strict” and “immediate” action should follow.

Shankar said violating the regulations is “disrespectful” to the Yale and New Haven community, since doing so would detract from the progress the city and the state has made in curtailing the virus’s spread. He noted that many Yale students are from populations that the pandemic has not disproportionately affected, and that it’s likely many of them don’t know anyone who’s been impacted by COVID-19. 

“Partying under these circumstances is not just a simple misunderstanding or a mistake. It is a deliberate action taken with malintent.”

—Siddarth Shankar ’22

“People downplay the severity of this disease and they continue to believe that life can continue as normal,” Shankar said. “Moreover, people think that their individual actions don’t make a difference — they think if everyone is breaking social distancing, then why does it matter if I do as well? Partying under these circumstances is not just a simple misunderstanding or a mistake. It is a deliberate action taken with malintent.”

According to a Yale site detailing the enforcement of the community compact, students found not in compliance will first answer to one of Yale College’s Health and Safety Leaders: Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd or Senior Director of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Cathy Velucci. Repeated or serious violations will be handled by the Compact Review Committee, which may result in administrative action like restricted access to campus spaces or more serious disciplinary action. 

The site also notes that such consequences may be dealt with without the CRC, if violations are found through data capturing methods — like not filling out Yale’s daily health check while on campus. In an email to the News, Chun said that after the arrival quarantine, suite gatherings of 10 people are allowed if everyone wears a mask and stays six feet apart. Still, he noted that since on-campus gatherings are limited to one guest per suite resident, the majority of these events will have to be fewer than 10.

“All enrolled students have agreed to abide by the community compact, so I expect that they will support and protect each other by avoiding risky gatherings,” he said.

But Keene ’24 said that conversations with friends have shown just how unclear many students find the rules — including limits on personnel and visits to other residential colleges. 

She added that moving forward, clarifying these rules is “essential” for Yale.

“If the administration wants to effectively enforce rules, they have to make sure everyone knows them well,” Keene said.

Kanga said that it should be “the responsibility of the individual or group” to realize the consequences and risks of their actions, and that the administration shouldn’t directly interfere due to “privacy concerns.” Leleda Beraki ’24 also told the News that such illicit activities are “more on the students” than the administration, who have provided students with the means to have a safe semester. 

Andrew Aguilar ’24 noted that there should be more an effort to “[cultivate] a culture of accountability,” both within friend groups and the wider Yale community. While Kanga said that students who do not choose to stop breaking guidelines should be “removed from campus immediately,” Aguilar said that he hopes there can be alternatives asides from this like returning to on-campus quarantine. 

“This is not our space, this is not a place for people to let loose and have fun, this is a city full of people who are endangered by our presence,” Beraki said. “This responsibility lies in the hands of every student. As cliche as it is, peer pressure works. If we all hold the same mentality that we want a safe year, then those who decide otherwise will feel isolated and follow suit. Being a part of the Yale community means thinking about the greater good and not ourselves, there is no better time than now to show how strong our campus truly is.”

CONTINUING BONDS

Despite the challenges of this semester, student groups are hoping to at least break even — maintaining old relationships and perhaps building new ones with first years.

Still, these efforts are not without challenges. Yale Dems Membership and Inclusion Coordinate Kennedy Bennett ’22 told the News that many of their group’s friendships develop in settings unavailable this semester. The issue, she said, is not exclusive to their group. For many clubs, little events like getting a meal together or going to Woads are quintessential Yale  experiences.

“It isn’t that our Zoom meetings are limited, but it’s the ‘something extra’ — like doing work together in a coffee shop or getting ready together for a Saturday night with a new friend — that’s missing.”

—Kennedy Bennett ’22

“It isn’t that our Zoom meetings are limited, but it’s the ‘something extra’ — like doing work together in a coffee shop or getting ready together for a Saturday night with a new friend — that’s missing,” Bennett said. “We are working to compensate for these experiences by encouraging  members to participate in socially distant in-person activities…”

Still, she said that their group is “committed” to building a community and that they’ve added a mentorship initiative to add to their “social cohesion.” She added that they’ve also transitioned their social initiatives to online platforms.

Shankar — a member of Yale Jashan Bhangra — said that the team plans on allowing anyone to join instead of holding auditions online. He added that they’re considering hosting workouts and dance lessons over Zoom during the semester. While he said it’s not the same as in years past, their “strong, tight-knit” community will help maintain their bonds.

“We have learned and are continuing to learn how to build and sustain relationships in a largely virtual landscape,” YCC Presidential candidate Abey Philip ’22 said. “We are forced to carefully decide who we hang out with, how often we hang out with them, and how much time we invest in them. Through these past months, we have made time for each other, and we have found new and engaging ways to still connect with one another. This will be a challenge. But we will come out stronger on the other side.”

Phillip echoed that although Yale’s student body faces “immense challenges” this semester regarding maintaining its community, he believes that students have risen to the occasion.

Collignon said that since students will continue to want to socialize, it should be done in a safe manner, like through movie nights or small-scale sports. Ava Saylor ’24 and Andrew Du ’24 expressed similar sentiments, giving the examples of a water balloon fight or scavenger hunt respectively.

Yale’s administration also believes in the ability of campus student groups to maintain their respective communities — whether their members are in New Haven or elsewhere in the world.

“Because so many students are participating remotely, we ask that student organizations conduct their activities virtually,” Chun said. “We want all students to feel connected with each other and with campus life.”

(Yale News)

UP CLOSE:
A curatorial evolution

At Yale’s art institutions, the COVID-19 pandemic has incited a wave of change in programming and how curators approach their work.

Story by Freya Savla

Cover Photo by Marisa Peryer

Published on September 15, 2020

Walking down Chapel Street is a different experience today. Quaint and bustling a mere seven months ago, the street now exudes a sense of slow resurgence with half-shuttered stores and delivery-only restaurants. For a moment, a ray of sunlight streaks across the Starbucks crosswalk, rendering edges of the intersection blurry. Things almost feel different. But then the haze lifts, revealing two buildings whose doors, typically open to the public, remain indefinitely shut: the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art.

“The life of a museum is interacting with the public, and that has entirely been put on hold,” said Laurence Kanter, chief curator and the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art at the YUAG.

Responding to the global pandemic, the two institutions joined artistic institutions across the world by temporarily closing this March. But behind closed doors, work for curators is not decreasing.

According to Kanter, curators at the YUAG have continued to catalogue and maintain collections, communicate with lenders and assist Yale’s teaching faculty with course materials. The closure gave Keely Orgeman, the Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, time to engage with scholarship, develop curator-led online programming and reflect upon objects in the museum’s collections.

Closures also led to rapid programming changes. Despite the postponement of exhibitions, YUAG Director Stephanie Wiles said the museum continued to lay out a five-year strategic plan including renovation projects. Wiled added that current events regarding ongoing police violence against Black Americans have added urgency to the gallery’s commitments to diversity, inclusion and access.

To continue community engagement post-closures, institutions increased their online presence to bring resources to the general public. Christopher Renton, associate director of marketing and communications at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, said the pandemic caused staff to quickly “pivot” in order to create digital programming and keep their audiences engaged.

Yet the most onerous work for curators has been in their own minds. They must grapple with how museums can both adapt to the current public health crisis and prepare for a post-pandemic world.

THE DIGITAL EXHIBITION

The traditional gallery experience doesn’t necessarily prioritize pandemic protocols, especially in museums with large crowds and tight spaces. These practical concerns have forced museums to rethink how they engage with the public.

Immediate concerns for the physical museum include implementing provisions for social distancing, decreasing museum capacity, marking unidirectional pathways through gallery spaces, restricting usage of headsets and touchscreens, rethinking the logistics of artwork transport and considering future programming uncertainties.

But changes must also occur outside of a traditional in-person gallery experience. Wiles noted that all museums and cultural institutions recognize the need to continue building a digital presence by providing virtual access to exhibitions and collections.

The YUAG is working with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, YCBA and Peabody to improve cross-collection online searches. The Peabody has been hosting virtual gallery talks and lectures, and is preparing for their first large-scale virtual fiesta.

Agnete Lassen, associate curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, said curators have been converting two exhibitions into digital experiences. She noted that curators must make different aesthetic considerations when organizing online exhibits. When creating physical exhibitions, it is important to consider colors, sizes and spatial relationships between objects — none of which translate well to digital mediums. Yet the virtual world offers novel opportunities with pop-up windows, video insertions of curator-led tours and options to embed longer blocks of text for interested readers.

“I think this is something that’s gonna stay for the long run,” Lassen said. “We don’t think of [online exhibitions] as static; rather, we keep creating new content that we can add. So there’s a lot of flexibility and so much potential that we still have to explore.”

This transition posed particular challenges for some of Yale’s artistic institutions. Kanter said that museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art have always maintained a massive digital interface, while the Morgan Library and Museum and the Frick Collection shifted all public outreach to digital platforms. But he added that since the YUAG did not expend many resources on its virtual identity pre-pandemic, the shift to digital was a “major change.” Similarly, Renton said that since the Peabody had grown into a chiefly “in-person experience” over the years, switching to digital had been challenging.

“We’re not going to do digital exhibitions — that’s besides the point. We strongly feel that our purpose is to offer the public the opportunity to encounter great works of art directly and personally.”

—Laurence Kanter, chief curator at the YUAG

Yet while digital programming continues to provide new avenues, not all curators are open to digital exhibitions.

“We’re not going to do digital exhibitions — that’s besides the point,” Kanter said. “We strongly feel that our purpose is to offer the public the opportunity to encounter great works of art directly and personally.”

While Kanter agrees that digital access to art is better than no access, he said that anyone with access to art can disseminate it digitally. He believes a museum’s “highest goal” lies in its unique ability to grant direct physical access to the public.

The challenges museums must contend with extend beyond the digital realm. Highlighting the potential for the pandemic to manifest as a global financial crisis, Orgeman noted financial and budgetary constraints.

“Since we don’t know long-term financial impacts, we have to be more intentional and collaborative about our use of resources,” Orgeman said. “I think more museums will do what Yale’s doing — develop installations centered around existing collections. I don’t see blockbuster exhibitions returning for another few years.”

CRISIS AS OPPORTUNITY

(David Zheng)

In a time before COVID-19, museums across the world were already moving toward digital content, only at a slower pace. The current crisis has curators confronting challenges posed by the online format as occasions for innovation.

“Everyone hopes to use moments of crisis as learning opportunities,” Wiles said. “One thing we know is that when we look back at ourselves in two, three, or five years, we want to have used these lessons to help make the institution we work for a better and stronger place.”

Orgeman foresees greater engagement between contemporary artists and museums, either through online programs or commissioned collaborations.

“One of the things that has really become clear during the lockdown is everybody being forced to move online suddenly makes the world seem a lot smaller,” Lassen said. “I really feel like there’s been a lot of interaction in these academic communities that have come from the lockdown.”

Four months ago, the Yale Babylonian Collection, along with five core institutions — the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, the Oriental Institute, the Penn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art — co-founded “#ConnectingCollections.”

Elizabeth Knott, a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Babylonian Collection who spearheaded the initiative, said that #ConnectingCollections explores connections across museum collections focused on the ancient world. Using monthly thematic posts on Instagram and other social media platforms, the project exposes the work that lies behind exhibition planning, scholarly research, conservation efforts and storage practices. For instance, the Yale Babylonian Collection and Penn Museum shared and compared two tablets from the Epic of Gilgamesh that were written by the same scribe but wound up in separate collections.

The Getty, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Morgan Library and Museum have since joined the initiative. Lassen said the team reached out to museums in Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, and the Slemani Museum in Iraq recently agreed to collaborate. Lassen said since it was easy to invite curators from Europe or the Middle East to a Zoom meeting, it had been very fruitful to speak with curators across museums. She hopes this connection lasts beyond COVID-19.

“Improving digital connections is something museums had to learn anyway, but COVID-19 sort of gave us a head start in forcing us into it,” Lassen said. “It was something that sprang from necessity, but in many ways it’s really given us something that we were not expecting in terms of engagement with other museums and our curatorial colleagues, but also a much wider audience.”

On a similar note, Renton noted that it has been positive to see the Yale Peabody identity extend far beyond New Haven. He said in-person research talks usually had an audience of 60 to 80 people, but some of their online lectures were attended by over 300 people from around the world.

Kailen Rogers, assistant director of exhibitions at the Peabody, said that last fall, the museum attempted to digitize a diorama using a 3D digital scanning process called photogrammetry. During the pandemic, they extended this project and partnered with the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media to digitize all 11 of the museum’s dioramas for a research initiative called “Lens Reality.”

“This new way of looking at exhibitions is something we’re investing into at the CCAM,” said CCAM Director Dana Karwas. Karwas added she is excited to see how creative thinkers adapt to the “slower pace” the digital transition will bring. Instead of a mere tool to create art, she envisions digital components as more integrated frameworks for artistic design.

“There are some really exciting ways to think about all these arts disciplines — even though we have to put a pause on some parts, other avenues are opening up. I am excited about the shift, and about embracing it.”

“There are some really exciting ways to think about all these arts disciplines — even though we have to put a pause on some parts, other avenues are opening up. I am excited about the shift, and about embracing it.”

—CCAM Director Dana Karwas

THE ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE

Sake parties, conferences in Asia and a new Instagram account are a few events characterizing Cynthia Rubin’s “pretty satisfying Zoom life.” Rubin, a new media artist based in New Haven, has embraced this time to try new things, change her practice and connect with other artists.

Marta Kuzma, dean of the Yale School of Art, said that as curators scrambled to revise their representation of artists, it empowered the individual artist to find their own way to present their work and curate projects. Kuzma sees artists responding to activism and forging platforms of public discussion.

“It’s a time for great creativity — the pandemic hasn’t really created any spare time,” Rubin said. “People are much more interested in genuinely looking at each other’s work.”

Finding success in visual art, like many other practices, often involves networking. Virtual platforms have not only made it easier to meet people, Rubin said, but the networking itself has shifted from simply establishing connections to exchanging ideas. Additionally, access to networks has increased transparency between artists and curators, making exhibition planning much easier.

Aki Sasamoto, assistant professor at the Yale School of Art, said that when the pandemic began, she considered expanding her art to video. But despite ample time to learn, she does not believe an artist can simply switch from their preferred medium.

Sasamoto views the current public demand for digital art as “momentary.” Surges in demand for particular art forms ebb and flow throughout history, and Sasamoto is confident the art world will regain equilibrium.

“This year, people are looking into how they can make art that is compatible with digital formats,” Sasamoto said. “I would imagine there will be a lot more artists who will come out of this, but that doesn’t mean other kinds of art have died.”

Neither Rubin nor Sasamoto foresee digital platforms fully replacing in-person experiences. Sasamoto said the relationship between the two mediums is not necessarily competitive. Instead, viewing art online inspires people to see the artwork at museums. “People want to hang out with people — it is tied to being human,” Sasamoto said.

THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS GOING FORWARD

(David Zheng)

Even as the immediate effects of the pandemic recede, curators have begun to engage with its more long-term implications. To many artists and curators, it seems as though several aspects of the museum experience will be forever altered.

For instance, Lassen noted that virtual exhibits introduce the ability to zoom into smaller objects and highlight different components of a work for interpretation.“Now when we build physical exhibits, if we don’t have that opportunity, it would feel like something’s missing,” Lassen said. She mentioned it would be possible to use virtual reality technology in physical museums to recreate this magnifying effect.

It’s possible that such constant adaptations have been the “norm” for museums. Kanter described museums as “constantly evolving.” He said that when museums were first conceived, they were exclusive to a small group of people. Since then, museums have expanded over time to include different variations of groups of people, becoming more academically and intellectually oriented. Kanter added that every generation has a different idea of what is best for a museum: Artistic preferences constantly change, and they’re changing today.

“Each period, people thought differently about what was important, and to a certain extent, it is the museum’s responsibility to respond to that and show people what they want to see,” Kanter said. “But it’s also a museum’s responsibility to educate the public and show them more than what they’re asking for. Otherwise, they’re like sports franchises or movie theaters — simply a commercial response to demand.”

But curators have varying ideas about the extent to which museums should control the narrative. According to Lassen, since digitizing collections allows anyone to access them, engagement with art has become a lot more “democratic.” She noted that in her area of expertise, ancient Near Eastern arts, curatorial practices have evolved from curators acting as “gatekeepers” of artifacts to providing open access to everyone.

Lassen thinks curators need to be open to letting other people question curatorial practices and letting other people tell their own stories.

Going forward, Lassen would like to solicit curatorial input from the community. She plans to invite community members to curate online exhibits by allowing them to choose objects of interest and write label texts.

The democratic nature of increased access to online collections contradicts the possibility that in-person access to museums will become even more exclusive amid health and safety concerns. Though large numbers of people across the globe can attend virtual museum events for free, Orgeman mentioned possibilities of selective in-person reopenings, ticketed sales and strict museum capacity limits.

“The future will be a very different reality, we don’t know what that will look like,” Kanter said. “Some days I fear it will be more commercial than less. Some days, I hope it will return to what it was meant to be — a philanthropic opportunity for the public.”

(Daniel Zhao)

Survey shows first years support social movements

Written by Valerie Pavilonis

Data Analysis and Visualizations by Zully Arias

Cover Photo by Logan Howard

Published on September 14, 2020

Throughout the summer, incoming Yalies marched.

One of those marchers was Ruhi Khan ’24, who demonstrated in May to support Black Lives Matter in her predominantly white hometown of Newark, Delaware. The march was peaceful, she said, and she was “moved” to see that many non-Black people like her — Khan is Indian — had come out in solidarity with the movement. During that procession, one of the onlooking police officers asked to take the microphone, Khan said, and in front of the crowd, he asked if attendees could keep it peaceful and safe; his daughter was marching.

Activism was a major topic of this year’s first-year survey, which was sent out by the News to learn more about the incoming Class of 2024. In March, Yale announced that it had admitted 2,304 students to the newest class of Yalies. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 341 students elected to take gap years as of Sept. 1, up from just 51 in the previous cycle. The anonymous survey — which was sent to 1,207 matriculating members of the Class of 2024 and accepted submissions between Aug. 31 and Sept. 2 — received 471 responses, for a response rate of 39 percent.

While the 471 students who responded to the survey answered questions about their residential colleges and their thoughts on Yale’s plan for the pandemic, many students also shared their opinion on politics.

Khan was not the only first-year student to march. Others in her class also took to the streets and to social media to stand against police brutality. And while several first years interviewed by the News have differing opinions on the numerous movements that made headlines over the summer — and continue to do so — one thing is clear: many members of the newest batch of Yalies, from Delaware to Utah to California, consider political and social activism to be a core concern.

ACTIVISM AT HOME

In Corpus Christi, Cynthia Sutanto ’24 attended two “strictly non-violent” Black Lives Matter rallies that focused on spreading awareness of police brutality. Additionally, the events provided a platform for Black artists to share their thoughts on the movement, Sutanto wrote in an email to the News.

“I chose to be a part of these rallies to stand in solidarity with members in my community who are affected by police brutality,” Sutanto wrote. “I believe these events are an important way to inform the general populace about racial inequality. The large amount of media attention that rallies/protests gained put pressure on lawmakers to make a change.”
Still, Sutanto noted that she perceives much of the current activism as performative, and hopes that activists will go beyond social media and into politics to advocate for change.

Jamarc Simon ’24 told the News that he “100 percent support[s] the Black Lives Matter movement,” saying that the country is moving in the right direction. While Simon added that he is “a little iffy” about the Defund the Police movement, he said that he supports better training for police officers and fully supports protests against police brutality.

From the survey results, most students have similar feelings.

Nearly three-quarters of first years who responded to the News’ survey, or 74 percent, were “very supportive” of the Black Lives Matter movement, while 17 percent were “somewhat supportive.” Respondents answered similarly when asked whether or not they supported protests against police brutality.

But distributions differed when students were asked if they supported the Defund the Police movement: just 34 percent were “very supportive,” while 11 percent and 12 percent of respondents were “somewhat unsupportive” and “not at all supportive,” respectively.

25.3 percent of first years who answered the survey said they had participated in a protest against police brutality this summer, and 49.9 percent said they weren’t able to attend a protest, “but wanted to.”

Even though Matthew Miller ’24 was not able to go to any protests for very long because he has family members who are at high risk for COVID-19, he told the News that he does wholeheartedly support Black Lives Matter and defunding the police.

“I do feel very strongly about the matter, being Black, so I want to be a part of the change,” Miller wrote in an email to the News. “The idea of defunding police was new to me but it makes so much sense — I’m also a very big mental health awareness advocate and often police do not properly respond to delicate mental health crises.”

Other students told the News about how sentiment for police reform has made its way past the sidewalks and streets and into their homes. For the first time, Mahesh Agarwal ’24’s immigrant parents are considering anti-Black racism, and Agarwal himself has learned about “nitty gritty issues” such as broken-windows policing.

For Agarwal, critically examining law enforcement is a crucial method of reform.

“I love that we’re questioning a core aspect of society,” Agarwal wrote to the News. “Does our criminal justice system need to look exactly the way it does now or could we imagine a more effective system? I don’t like the idea of pitting people against each other or burning everything down. I see issues through a policy lens rather than an ideological one.”

Gabe Ransom ’24 told the News that while he already cheered on movements to reform the police, the shooting last week of a teenager with autism near his home in Utah brought the issue closer to home.

“It was especially powerful for it to happen right next to my house, because most of the incidents that everyone talks about are Atlanta, Minneapolis, Ferguson, places that are not close to me,” Ransom said. “It always sets in a little bit more when it’s your community.”

Students protest the Yale Police Department following the shooting of Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon in April 2019 (Ann Hui Ching)

POLITICAL LEANINGS

Similar to past years, the incoming class skews heavily liberal, with 32 percent and 46 percent of respondents saying that they were “very liberal” and “somewhat liberal,” respectively. Very few students identify on the other side of the political spectrum, with just 7.9 percent and 1.3 percent of respondents calling themselves “somewhat conservative” or “very conservative,” respectively.

Opinions on social acceptance based on political leanings also varied. A far greater proportion of liberal-leaning respondents answered “yes” when asked if they thought their political views would be accepted on campus, whereas the majority of conservative-leaning students answered either “no” or “unsure.”

These results line up with Suanto’s impression of the political landscape among first-year Yalies, based on the interactions she’s had during her first two weeks on campus. While most of her peers lean left, she said, she has also made friends with students whose views lean centrist or right. And while her left-leaning peers tend to be very vocal about their beliefs, the more center- or right-leaning students have been less so.

“These students tend to not broadcast their opinions because they fear being ‘canceled’ by other Yalies,” Sutanto wrote. “I believe this trend is problematic because it stifles the potential for productive political discourse. In order to actually change the minds of students (who are ultimately the future of this country), there needs to be a willingness to and acceptance of listening to a wide range of opinions.”

For Simon, Yale’s political environment is a welcome change — his high school community, he said, did not generally hold the views that he does. The “good thing” about Yale, Simon said, is that it seems like a safe space to voice one’s opinion, and he does not think that “people will condemn you for your political views.” Still, he said that he is biased in this particular case, because the overall campus political tone matches his own.

Han Choi ’24 shared a view similar to Sutanto and Simon.

“I think we can all agree that the Yale student body is definitely super liberal and left-leaning,” Choi said. “To me and to other students … just meeting people in my res college, I’m starting to see that there’s a lot more people with differing views, like not that far to the left, but I actually think that most people would be accepting of views even on the other end of the political spectrum.”

EVEN WITH ONLINE CLASSES, STUDENTS COMMIT TO ACTIVISM

Before Choi came to Yale, he joined a police reform advocacy group in his hometown of South Pasadena near Los Angeles. While his local police department did not grapple heavily with the issues criticized within the Los Angeles Police Department, Choi said, he and his group looked into the police handbook and looked for ways to increase transparency and accountability.

Even though Choi’s activism took place in his hometown, survey results indicate that almost half of first-year students — 46 percent — plan to engage in activism while at Yale. And while 36 percent of students are unsure of their plans, only about 18 percent said that their time at Yale will not include activism.

Multiple students interviewed by the News said that while activism at Yale did not play a major role in their decisions to matriculate, they appreciate what they perceive as the University’s broader culture of advocacy. For Sutanto, her interests lay in the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project and the Yale Prison Education Initiative, both projects run through Dwight Hall and both address issues she cares about.

“While activism did not specifically influence my decision to come to Yale, I did love the sense of community that Yale has,” Sutanto wrote. “Yalies are almost always willing to go the extra mile to support one another and their New Haven community. In the face of great racial inequality and a pandemic, Yale students make a point to not be complicit.”

Yale students express support for prison abolition in 2018 (Courtesy of Eli Feasley)

Miller echoed Sutanta, saying that student activism and the general passion for social movements has influenced him. While activism will not be his main focus while at Yale, Miller said, there remain issues that he wishes to fight for.

“I do plan to participate in political activism, much to the chagrin of my mother who told me that when I get to school, I just need to ‘keep [my] head down and do [my] work,’” Miller wrote. “I don’t think I would have ever considered myself an activist until I saw the change other Yalies were trying to create and realizing I could participate as well.”

Students from the Class of 2024 come from all 50 states, in addition to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and 72 countries.

UP CLOSE:
Circuit breaking and contact tracing at Yale-NUS

Story by John Besche

Published on September 10, 2020

Nearly 17 years before COVID-19 would rattle Wuhan and the world at large, another coronavirus wreaked havoc throughout Asia, infecting over 8,000 and killing 774.

SARS — Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — landed in Singapore in 2003 after a former flight attendant was exposed to the disease during a shopping trip to Hong Kong. Esther Mok, one of Singapore’s index patients, or “patient zero(s),” is estimated to have infected over one hundred Singaporeans, including both of her parents who died of the virus. The Lion City experienced “two months of fear” and 33 deaths as a result of SARS, according to Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Disease. For many Singaporeans, the SARS scare persisted in living memory when a novel coronavirus threatened to put the city through another public health emergency in 2020.

In the nearly two decades between outbreaks, the face of Singapore changed considerably. The city-state’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, passed away; a blockbuster love story inspired by the city’s elite rocked the world and the National University of Singapore partnered with Yale to create an autonomous hybrid college — Yale-NUS. Amidst all this change, Singapore was able to refine its public health infrastructure such that the new school would be among the best equipped in the world to confront a SARS-like emergency. Just last year, Singapore opened its National Center for Infectious Diseases equipped with 330 beds designed to combat a public health emergency like SARS. Unbeknownst to them, that emergency would begin on Jan. 23, 2020 when Singapore confirmed its first case of COVID-19.

While administrators and students at Yale and Yale-NUS praised, and learned from, the public health measures in place, there is no comparing SARS and COVID-19 in terms of number of cases. As of mid-September, Singapore experienced 27 deaths and over 57,000 cases due to COVID-19. SARS infected 238 Singaporeans, killing 33, according to the Straits Times.

The coronavirus pandemic crippled the school’s in-person functionality ahead of its partner institution in New Haven, allowing for Yale administrators to interface with Yale-NUS and strategize for the public health emergency to come.

Whether students are Zooming in from Southern Connecticut or Southeast Asia, the ripple effects of the pandemic have altered nearly every facet of college life. For students at Yale-NUS, directives from the Singpaorean government, college administrators and support from peers have made for a largely normal return to campus and a reimagining of undergraduate education that Yale-NUS President Tan Tai Yong believes will only make the College stronger. 

CODE ORANGE

(Asha Prihar)

On March 18, Yale-NUS spokesperson Fiona Soh updated the News on the College’s response to the novel coronavirus. At the time, the school functioned in split teams to de-densify campus spaces and all students had the option to take classes online to reduce risk of transmission. At the time, Yale-NUS was working according to its Business Continuity Plan — a set of best practices designed to maintain functionality through emergency circumstances, according to the Singapore Ministry of Manpower.

“March BCP mode” meant twice daily temperature checks for those on campus, photographic attendance checks in classrooms to facilitate contact tracing, takeaway food options and a moratorium on gatherings of more than 50 people. The school’s joint open house for prospective students held with its partner National University of Singapore was moved online at the end of February. These measures were techy, innovative and severe in contrast to what world governments were anticipating at the time. According to Yale-NUS administrators, these measures were rooted in a national protocol known as the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition, or its Cold War-esque shorthand, DORSCON.

“[National crisis guidelines] are heavily informed by Singapore’s experience with SARS and the expertise developed in infectious disease management as a result,” executive Vice President of Yale-NUS Kristen Lynas told the News in March. “When the DORSCON risk assessment level was raised in February, the College was able to trigger its business continuity plan for infectious disease within hours.”

Yale-NUS maintained a stockpile of public health equipment such as thermometers and N-95 masks. Even though the College was rolling out pandemic gear — now known worldwide as PPE, or personal protective equipment — within hours of a DORSCON Code Orange, the school was forced to move all classes online in early April as part of Singapore’s “Circuit Breaker” transmission mitigation lockdown. During the Circuit Break, which lasted from April 7 to June 1, residents could only leave their homes for essential purposes such as buying groceries, seeking medical help, reporting for national service and perhaps most consequentially, to leave Singapore.

This, of course, meant that there would be no graduation festivities for the class of 2020. 

“We were informed that we had to move out in a few days, which was quite upsetting for the student body,” said Ysien Lau, a member of the College’s 2020 graduating class. “Yale-NUS has put in effort to quickly provide housing and food for students who need it, and the student government and the College’s Residential Life team have been great in coordinating last-minute storage facilitating and move-out procedures. We have also seen an overwhelming amount of support from a supportive and caring alumni community, who have offered to help financially, with moving out, searching for career opportunities or be a listening ear.”

Feroz Khan, who graduated from Yale-NUS in 2018, was among the first alumni to respond to students’ calls for support. Khan, a member of the alumni council, told the News that the school’s young alumni base was quick to create a Google Form where students and alumni could share and meet needs.

“Within 48 hours, people offered an overwhelming amount of resources,” Khan said.

The form was able to facilitate last minute housing, emergency cash and even free counseling from alumni who work in the mental health field. Khan — who himself sent cash via Paylah, Singapore’s answer to Venmo — said that he was impressed with how much Yale-NUS was able to do for its students, saying that the alumni “really only had to help fill in the gaps.”

The administration praised the community’s ability to take sweeping directives in stride.

“This is not the first challenge we have faced as a college, and I am sure it will not be the last,” executive Vice President Joanne Roberts said. “I have been deeply encouraged by how our community has pulled together at this time to look after each other while rising to each day’s challenges. Such examples of grace and selflessness are perhaps the richest lessons that each of us can be learning during this time.”

“This is not the first challenge we have faced as a college, and I am sure it will not be the last.”

—Joanne Roberts, Executive Vice President of Yale-NUS

ENTER THE ZOOM ROOM

For the first semester of the 2020-2021 academic year at Yale-NUS, the college has partially opened in accordance with Singaporean government directives. The college’s cautious steps — inspired by months of troubleshooting higher education during a pandemic — have made for a campus experience preferable to some Yalies who opted to remain in Singapore instead of returning to Yale. These structural changes began, of course, with the Zoom room.

Catherine Sanger serves as director of the Center for Teaching and Learning for Yale-NUS, and was on the vanguard of developing the educational online interface most institutions of higher learning are deploying this fall.

“The disruption, both logistical and emotional, of COVID-19 has meant I’ve had to make some hard choices about content to cut from my syllabus,” Sanger said.

Sanger added that students who were developing confidence in verbal expression are no longer engaging in face-to-face dialogue, which she said is “what really stings.” She hopes that the foundation from the beginning of the semester can be built on.

Nowadays, Sanger is far from alone in her Zoom woes. One of the more obvious deficits resulting from remote learning is a lack of interpersonal contact that brightens students’ college years.

To combat the mental health impact of the pandemic on the Yale-NUS community, students deployed wellness resources and care packages to finish off the semester.

Madhumitha Ayyappan, a student in the class of 2023, worked with the Student Government and the Wellness Committee to provide care packages including hand sanitizer, healthy snacks,  comic strips about COVID cautions and coloring cards for World Mental Health Day. She also engaged professional resources to generate conversations on mental health. Ayyappan and her fellow 2023 classmate Ivy Liao coordinated a talk with a Yale-NUS counselor and a scientist from Duke-NUS, another autonomous partner university attached to the National University of Singapore. Perhaps ironically, they were able to address COVID-19 anxieties over Zoom and conduct mindfulness sessions for students.

Ayyappan commented that the College has been “extremely cognisant” of issues students are experiencing due to the pandemic.

“They’ve been extremely supportive in this period and the administration decided to offer the option to all students to exercise the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory option for any module taken last semester,” Ayyappan told the News. 

Additionally, Ayyappan pointed toward the College’s ability to troubleshoot the logistics of a highly international student body during a pandemic. She said that Yale-NUS was willing and able to accommodate more student requests for on-campus summer housing than normal, as many international students feared they would not be able to return to Singapore if they were to leave.

She added that the school increased accessibility to emergency funding, as well.

“The College has a robust system of aid and eligible students can seek financial assistance from the College to help with post-matriculation costs that may arise, this includes exceptional costs arising from the COVID-19 crisis such as the Stay Home Notice …  required by the government,” Executive Vice President Roberts said. “Our students’ safety and well-being are of utmost concern and we hope that this is one way we can provide some relief to them during this period.”

In addition to supporting students in financial distress due to the pandemic, the College has been able to provide guidance to students who just graduated into a mid-pandemic workforce.

Celeste Beh, who graduated this May, was assigned to an advisor in the College’s Center for International and Professional Experience who helped her navigate the uncertainties of transitioning into post-graduation life. She said that the counselor reached out to her regularly and directed her to helpful resources.

Beh’s circumstances illustrate how even in a country where COVID-19 is largely under control, global economic woes threaten to hinder the transition to life after college. In the case of some Yalies, circumstances have pushed them to rethink life during college altogether.

THE DOMESTIC STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM

The Center for Disease Control reported nearly 300,000 worldwide cases of COVID-19 during the first week of the fall semester alone, and yet, there was no unified protocol for tackling the virus. For international students wary of traveling overseas and potentially putting themselves at risk in a global epicenter of the virus, returning to the United States for the fall is a formidable undertaking.

Yale Vice President for Global Strategy Pericles Lewis — who served as the inaugural president of Yale-NUS — said that Yale was more than willing to help international students find partner universities to study at during the 2020-2021 academic year.

Lindsay Allen, who works as senior associate director of international programs at Yale-NUS’ CIPE, said that Yale and Yale-NUS began to configure solutions for Singapore-based students early in the summer. Allen said her office helped interested students submit applications to the College and facilitate course registration for a COVID-esque take on education.

Five Singaporean Yale students took the school up on its offer and opted to enroll at Yale-NUS this fall. At a time when most college students’ study abroad experiences are on hold, these Yalies get to do it from the comfort of their hometown.

Before COVID-19 was characterized as a pandemic, Shermaine Koh ’22 was torn over news from her home in Singapore and a general disinterest in the virus while she was on campus in the US.

“[In January] we didn’t know anything about what was then called the ‘Wuhan virus,’” Koh said. “I just remember my family starting to be anxious and increasing numbers of cases popping up. I also remember feeling anxious for my family and yet going about life normally in the States. The conversations that were (ironically) going on then among the Singaporean students were whether or not we would go home for the summer.”

Koh said that she and other international students worried that they would not be able to return to the U.S. if they traveled to Asia, since the global virus’ epicenter was in East and Southeast Asia at the time.

She recalled worrying about whether to buy masks, and feeling alone in her anxiety about the situation.

“Most of my American peers didn’t really seem too concerned about it at that point, which was perfectly normal since I also felt like being in the US made the virus (then a wee epidemic) feel like a faraway problem.”

—Shermaine Koh ’22

“Most of my American peers didn’t really seem too concerned about it at that point, which was perfectly normal since I also felt like being in the US made the virus (then a wee epidemic) feel like a faraway problem,” she said.

Koh and a Singaporean friend of hers who studies in the U.K. were stuck in Toronto when news hit that their respective colleges would be online for the rest of the semester.

The Singaporean government began urging students to return home, where Koh’s parents wanted her anyway. She returned to her dorm in Silliman, lugged her belongings into the college’s storage basement and split for Singapore.

By late June, it looked unlikely that Yale would return to on-campus education in the fall, so Koh decided to reach out to Yale-NUS.

“I know this probably sounds absurd, but I’d long been casually joking about potentially taking a semester ‘abroad’ at Yale-NUS because I really wanted to take Southeast Asian studies. But that was really half in-jest,” Koh said. “It’s definitely not a joke now that I’m literally here.”

Now, Koh is again living in a residential college — Yale-NUS has three residential colleges in the style of its partner school in New Haven — where she has made new friends and has begun what she describes as the best semester ever, academically that is. As a history student with a primary interest in Southeast and East Asia, Koh said Yale-NUS has far more modules in that area than she would have been able to study at Yale.

Koh is not the only Singaporean Yalie feeling at home at home.

“I also love social life here — I actually found it easier integrating into [Yale-NUS] than Yale honestly,” Victoria Lim ’21, another Yalie who opted to enroll at Yale-NUS for the fall, said. “I clicked very quickly with my suitemates, and have met so many new people within the span of a month. The small student body means that it’s easy to expand your social network. It’s also a lot more international than Yale.”

THE NEW NORMAL

On July 1, Yalies received word from President Peter Salovey and Provost Scott Strobel that the fall semester would primarily take place remotely. Salovey reported Yale’s testing strategies and density modifications that would allow for a partial return to residential life, in accordance with guidelines from Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.

While taking directives from state authorities reflects new territory for Yale — a private institution — Yale-NUS’ integration with the government makes unified policy response the norm. As a part of the National University of Singapore, and by extension the national government, Yale-NUS answers to the Ministries of Health and Education when it comes to an emergency like COVID-19.

“[Institutes of higher learning] can bring students back on campus for small group classes with no more than 50 persons per class,” a spokesperson from Singapore’s Ministry of Education told the News. “All necessary safe management measures are taken, such as safe distancing of at least one metre between individuals and the implementation of SafeEntry, a national digital check-in system which logs individuals’ entry into a venue.”

Equipped with high tech public health infrastructure and a commitment to carrying on, Yale-NUS was able to reopen with facilities operating “as close to normal as possible,” according to an August Yale-NUS news post.

Sophomores Ayyappan and Liao said that while campus life has certainly changed — Ayyappan called it “mellow” — college life has persisted, despite the setbacks.

“The butteries aren’t open, some classes have shifted online and sports trainings have also been modified,” Ayyappan said. “I find myself spending more time in my suite and bonding with my suitemates instead. Nonetheless, I am extremely grateful that I get to be back on campus and see my friends. Some campus activities have been shifted over to Zoom (such as mindfulness classes), so I am still able to keep in touch with the community which is truly a blessing in these uncertain times.”

In an effort to keep the sense of community alive, Liao, who serves on her residential college council, helped to reimagine a Yale-NUS tradition for life during a pandemic. The “Start of Semester Dinner” normally involves the whole of Elm College gathering in the dining hall to share a meal, but per COVID-19 restrictions, the meals were delivered to individual suites and students showcased performances over Zoom.

Social distancing guidelines have also had consequences on athletic extra curriculars. Liao, who plays on the women’s basketball team, added that she noticed “differences in the rigor” of team practices. She noted that these restrictions have migrated to the classroom as well.

“While I am grateful to still be able to attend physical classes, getting used to the new rules (such as contact tracing, mask wearing, and safe distancing) has been quite challenging,” Liao wrote in an email. “Class discussions are sometimes unable to run as they did during normal circumstances and many professors have had to alter their teaching style (e.g. less discussions, different assessments) in response to these restrictions.”

Yale-NUS CTL Director Catherine Sanger spoke to the variety of problems she has faced in planning for continuity in academic life. The greatest challenge, she said, has been the need to confront two sets of demands at the same time.

The first set of demands pertains to safety measures for the classroom — masks and distance — which she wrote “impede[s]” communication. The second set has to do with remote instruction for students who are not taking classes in person. Sanger said that students in the classroom want for the experience to resemble pre-pandemic life as much as possible while students Zooming in often have difficulty engaging with the class.

Celeste Beh experienced at least half of a semester of remote instruction and lauded professors’ efforts despite the setbacks. 

“I will say that professors have been absolute champs in the classroom. All of them tried to keep us engaged while on Zoom despite them trying to get used to the technology and the difficulty of teaching virtually themselves.”

—Celeste Beh, member of the Yale-NUS class of 2020

“I will say that professors have been absolute champs in the classroom,” Beh wrote in an email to the News. “All of them tried to keep us engaged while on Zoom despite them trying to get used to the technology and the difficulty of teaching virtually themselves. As students, we sometimes get so caught up with feeling inconvenienced by online classes that we forget our professors are getting used to it too.”

Troubleshooting the hybrid nature of the COVID-19 classroom has been successful to the extent that Sanger and Ayyappan said academic life at Yale-NUS is alive and well. Ayyappan said that she would not describe academic life at Yale-NUS as “halted.”

“We are living through a global crisis and that is distracting and deeply troubling,” Sanger wrote. “However, I have been very fortunate to be here in Singapore largely safe and able to continue with my work.”

The commitment to continuity extends to a central component of any college: the library.

Principal Librarian Priyanka Sharma told the News that the experience has led to newfound team bonding within the library and also parent departments and colleagues from across Yale-NUS. Sharma has had to innovate to deliver information literacy sessions in a COVID-19 appropriate manner. She added that the library has focused on “clear and timely communication,” and new methods of engagement with the College community, like short videos on the library’s Instagram page.

Between fortifying its social media presence and aggressively reimagining the way college students interface with a college campus, Yale-NUS, like all schools, has had to think extensively about what it means to facilitate an education. Facing the existential challenge of a pandemic forced the Yale-NUS community to preserve what it considered vital to an education, and employed a fair amount of ingenuity to do so. President Tan praised innovation from community members like Sharma and Sanger, and said that COVID-19 has presented a variety of learning opportunities for Yale-NUS.

“I hope we emerge from this crisis stronger than before,” Tan said. “The crisis has taught us how to be more adaptable and resilient as a community, and given us a chance to creatively find new opportunities to improve our policies and programmes.”

(Yale Daily News)

UP CLOSE
Credence to whom: Who votes for Yale’s trustees

Story by Valerie Pavilonis

Graphic by Christie Yu

Published on September 9, 2020

L

ast May, as students finished up their online classes and finally shut their laptops, Yale’s alumni booted up their own computers for one annual ritual that wasn’t halted by the pandemic: the Yale Corporation election.

The process was simple: read about the two candidates — both alumni themselves — in a voter guide and make a choice. Maurie McInnis GRD ’96 graduated Yale with her Ph.D. in the History of Art and climbed through the ranks of academic administration to become the provost of the University of Texas at Austin, before moving on as president of Stony Brook University. Carlos Moreno ’70 studied political science as an undergraduate and eventually became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California before serving as the U.S. ambassador to Belize. Just like every alumni member of the Yale Corporation, past and present, McInnis and Moreno lead in their fields as model Yale affiliates.

After the polls closed on May 17 and the votes were tallied, Yale announced the results on May 23: Carlos Moreno had clinched the Corporation seat. While a later announcement from Yale pointed out that 18,135 alumni voted and that the University saw a 7 percent increase in voter turnout from the previous year, the release did not mention the total number of eligible voters —  146,481, according to Vice President for Institutional Affairs Martha Schall, which means that only about 13 percent of alumni had cast a ballot.

According to former U.S. Ambassador to Poland and former mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee Victor Ashe ’67, the lack of voter participation in Corporation elections is “so meager, it’s embarrassing.” It “speaks volumes” about the way Yale engages with alumni, he added.

Ashe’s concern about the election is personal. Largely backed by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program, he is running for a spot on the Corporation in 2021 as a petition candidate. While a committee of alumni typically collect nominations from their peers and vet candidates who are then presented to alumni at the start of the voting period, non-nominated Corporation hopefuls can take a less-traveled route: landing on the ballot by collecting 4,394 signatures from supportive alumni on their petitions. In multiple interviews with the News, Ashe complained about the lack of voter turnout and the general secrecy of Corporation elections when it comes to nominated candidates, who typically do not campaign or give interviews about their perspectives before or after being voted into the trusteeship.

Still, Schall emphasized that voter participation did see a 7 percent increase from 2019. The reason why, she said, could be better communication between Yale and its voter base, especially in the form of emails from the Yale Alumni Association, or YAA, and other alumni leaders.

“In addition to this outreach, in the past three years the University has invested in making the voting website available and accessible on all platforms and devices,” Schall wrote. “We plan to continue these practices and types of engagement.”

But Ashe is not alone in his concerns. He is joined by fellow Corporation hopeful Maggie Thomas FES ’15, who served as a climate policy advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. According to her campaign website, she is running on a platform of environment-conscious investing and inclusive governance. Beyond Thomas, interviews with 13 members of the broader Yale community — from recent alumni to current professors — revealed various speculations as to why most alumni don’t vote. Each individual proposed different solutions, ranging from changing voting rules to hosting public forums. But many agreed on one central matter: Low voter turnout is a problem for the Yale Corporation and more broadly, the University’s future.

THE CORPORATION AND ALUMNI: A HISTORY

The Corporation is the main governing body of the University, comprising 16 members and the University President. Ten of those members are successor trustees who can serve two six-year terms, while the remaining members are “alumni fellows” elected by alumni every year for staggered six-year terms.

In an interview with the News, former University Secretary Sam Chauncey ’57 explained that in 1701, 10 ministers founded Yale and became the original Trustees — one of whom was Israel Chauncey, from whom Sam Chauncey is descended. In the 1790s, the state of Connecticut added six state officials and the governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut to the Corporation in exchange for financial assistance to Yale. In the 1870s, however, Yale replaced those state actors with six “alumni fellows.” 

Chauncey also told the News about some notable Corporation election proceedings. While several alumni have tried to run as petition candidates, only two have claimed victory in the general election: William Horowitz, class of 1929, and Stanhope Bayne-Jones, class of 1910. Horowitz, Chauncey said, ran twice in the 1960s, lost the election the first time and won the second, becoming the first Jewish person to ever serve on the Corporation. In the 1970s, founder of the National Review William F. Buckley Jr. ’50 made it onto the ballot, but lost to former Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance ’39 LAW ’42. And in the past two years, conservative journalist James Kirchick ’06 and Georgetown Law Professor Nicholas Rosenkranz ’92 LAW ’99 both suspended their campaigns after failing to gather enough signatures. 

The relationship between the Corporation and alumni was discussed in-depth in a 1970 report, commissioned by then-Yale President Kingman Brewster ’41 and the Corporation after “considerable discussion during the preceding months as to the effectiveness of the total alumni relations effort at the University.” That report, dubbed the Dwyer Report after commissioner Martin Dwyer ’57, notes that 50 years ago, about 33 percent of alumni voted in Corporation elections — about 20 percent more than in 2020.

Even though this number is about 20 points higher than current figures of alumni participation, Yale leaders were concerned even back in 1970 about a lack of alumni involvement with Yale, according to Harry Levitt ’71, Ashe’s de facto campaign manager, and the Dwyer report.

“And we still have that same challenge today,” Levitt said. “How do we get people to become interested again in what’s going on at Yale?”

The report also revealed other alumni concerns about the Corporation, such as that the Corporation was not sufficiently effective or representative. Ashe’s campaign has taken up these issues in his campaign. He pointed out that because nominated candidates do not campaign, alumni have no understanding of the candidates’ positions on key Yale affairs, while nominated candidates may not necessarily be aware of alumni concerns. As a result, Ashe said, alumni and the nominated candidates are disconnected. 

“When only 13 percent of the alumni even bother to vote, that speaks volumes,” Ashe said. “Who should be given greater credence? Myself or Maggie, each of whom have to have [about] 4,300 signatures, or a third and fourth candidate who are selected in secret and they’re not allowed to discuss issues?”

(Christie Yu)

THE CORPORATION, “A VERY EXCLUSIVE CLUB”

According to former Yale Club of Chicago President Scott Williamson ’80, nominated candidates have helped diversify the Corporation over the years. Most of the female successor trustees, Williamson told the News, gained their positions after first being elected as vetted alumni fellows. 

In 2015, Williamson served as the Chair of the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee, the group composed of alumni — most of whom also serve on the YAA’s Board of Governors — and tasked with identifying possible alumni fellow candidates to present a final list to the Office of the Secretary. Winnowing down lists of Corporation candidates is a drawn-out process, according to Williamson, and involves alumni submitting nominees before vetting the list further. During his time as Chair, Williamson spoke with the dean of every Yale school and several administrators to identify the type of candidate that could be an asset for Yale. 

According to Williamson, the Committee generally seeks out candidates who are prominent in their fields, diverse in background, experienced in leadership, have some demonstrated interest in Yale, and “play well in the sandbox with others.” He noted that the Committee also tries to identify gaps in Corporation expertise — for example, when his Committee realized that one Corporation blind spot was alumni relations, current Trustee and founder of shared interest alumni group YaleWomen Eve Rice ’73 was selected as a candidate. 

Generating diversity is one major consideration of the nominating committee, Williamson added. Since successor trustees tend to select replacements who are similar to themselves, he noted, the alumni fellow election tends to produce more “professional gender and racial diversity” within the Corporation.

Still, multiple alumni told the News that the Corporation could still improve its diversity, particularly when it comes to age and race.

Yale undergraduates are not authorized to vote in Corporation elections until five years after they graduate. Former President of Yale’s South Asian Society Dev Bhatia ’92 told the News that this rule disenfranchises a large group of alumni, a significant portion of whom are minority students, who are more likely to be interested in voting.

Using data from Yale’s Office of Institutional Research, Bhatia calculated that 21.3 percent of “ethnic minorities” who graduated from Yale since 1985 have done so in the past five years. Citing these statistics in a recent op-ed for the New Haven Register and in an interview with the News, Bhatia said that one can draw a straight line from the larger number of recently graduated minorities students to the policy ramifications when those minorities — and younger alumni in general — are barred from Corporation elections.

“Number one, you diminish overall results,” Bhatia told the News. “The most excited people are the recent graduates. If you’re not going to include them, you’re completely silencing the voices, you’re discouraging them from participating even when they’re able to later on.”

“Not surprisingly, therefore, there is a widely held view among the University’s own alumni that Yale may be run by a very exclusive club.”

—The Dwyer Report

Nods to a lack of representation are included within the Dwyer Report, which says that the historical — in 1970 — homogeneity of Corporation members was a major barrier to alumni interest in the governing body.

“A board of trustees which has never in its two hundred and sixty-nine year history included a Catholic, a female or a sub-thirty year old, cannot inspire much confidence among [our] alumni that they are full and equal members of the Yale community,” the report says. “Not surprisingly, therefore, there is a widely held view among the University’s own alumni that Yale may be run by a very exclusive club.”

But the commission could find little justification for continuing the homogeneity of the Corporation into the future, the report states. Since then, the Corporation has diversified, with women and people of color accounting for a significant portion of its membership. 

Still, Bhatia noted that the rule barring younger alumni from voting seems “indefensible.”  

“If you say to me, hey, minorities have gotten there by being nominated by other board members, that’s great. That’s great, and God bless them,” Bhatia said. “But we haven’t addressed the systematic issues that prevent other minorities with specific takes from being in that room.”

Still, Chauncey and Vice President for Communications Nate Nickerson said there are legal hurdles of changing the five-year rule. Since the Yale Charter is embedded in the state constitution, it requires an act by the State of Connecticut Legislature to open the charter and make any changes. 

The five-year rule has been on record since 1871. But when asked about the rationale behind the five-year rule, Schall wrote that she was not aware “of any historical documents that record the reason for the legislature’s decision.”

WHO VOTES, WHO DOESN’T AND WHY

According to Thomas, a number of factors feed into low turnout. Most alumni that her team speaks to, Thomas said, have no idea that a petition process is ongoing. Often those same alumni are not familiar with the Corporation as a whole. As Thomas and her team phone bank to raise their number of signatures, conversations often end up being more about educating alumni about Corporation elections — a sign that the University hasn’t done its job, Thomas told the News. 

Both Thomas and her campaign manager Scott Gigante GRD ’23 emphasized a lack of awareness about the Corporation elections among alumni.

“A lot of alumni don’t know about the election in general, and many who do, don’t seem to consider the election to be important,” Gigante told the News. “I think the barriers to entry in terms of getting a diverse range of viewpoints onto that election and discussing what is at stake is feeding into why alumni either don’t know or don’t care that there is an election.”

According to University President Peter Salovey, it’s hard to speculate why most alumni do not vote.

“We live in a world where people are bombarded with information coming by email or more traditional mail, and I think it’s hard to break through all of that and get people’s sustained attention,” Salovey told the News in an interview. “I would say people vary in how involved they want to be with the University in their thinking after graduation. But I want to do everything we can to encourage people to keep the University in their hearts and minds and participate in its future by involving themselves in the choosing of trustees.” 

Executive Director of the YAA Weili Cheng ’77 told the News that she and her office would “love to see” more participation in the alumni fellow process. She listed several ways that Yale has attempted to communicate better with alumni: stories, FAQs, social media and emails. 

Cheng added that since alumni fellow candidates are both suggested by and selected by alumni, nominated candidates do indeed represent the wishes of alumni. 

“To that end, the elected alumni fellow reflects the alumni population and the alumni voice — and we want every alum to feel like they’ve played a role in that election,” Cheng wrote in an email to the News.

As for why some alumni choose not to vote, Cheng wrote that she is unsure. Still, she said, her office “truly want[s]” to engage all alumni in the process, and she wrote that Yale has made “a concerted effort” to make voting easier and more accessible in recent years, a process that is ongoing. She also noted the 7 percent increase that Schall did, saying that she hopes for a similar or larger jump in 2021.

(Yale Daily News)

Professor of English Mark Oppenheimer ’96 GRD ’03 added that he sees three reasons why alumni don’t vote. First, he wrote to the News, people graduate and drift away from the Yale sphere of influence. Second, he noted that because the Corporation and Association of Yale Alumni “handpick” candidates, there is “nothing to pay attention to.” He then compared Corporation elections to proceedings in communist countries, where some elections have “fore-ordained conclusions.”

“Third, in my case, there is the disgust I feel for the cynical way that the Corporation maneuvers to ensure that no critics of the University ever get onto the Corporation,” Oppenheimer wrote.

In response, Nickerson wrote to the News in an email that the selection of alumni fellows is led by alumni throughout the process, “from nominations to the selection of candidates to the election itself.”

He noted the contentious election of 2002, where the petition candidate the Rev. W. David Lee DIV ’93 lost to Maya Lin ’81 ARCH ’86, well-known architect and designer of the Women’s Table on Cross Campus who was recruited by Yale “at the last minute” to run, according to Oppenheimer. According to a News article from the time, that election served as the most controversial Corporation election in Yale’s history — and it brought 44 percent of eligible Yale alumni voters to the ballot box. The final tally: about 83 percent of the vote to Lin, while Lee lost with about 17 percent.

Oppenheimer told the News that this election marked the “University at its absolute worst,” and said that Lin was recruited only to make sure that Lee — a Black local New Haven politician with liberal and pro-union views — did not win a seat on the Corporation. News of Lee’s candidacy bounced from New Haven to beyond, with the New York Times noting the heightened stakes of that particular election. Writing in an April 11, 2002 article, the Times said that while Corporation elections are “normally sleepy affair[s] with just a few candidates and none of the messy machinations of a political campaign,” Lee as a union-backed candidate had upset the typically low-radar process.

In an interview with the News, Chauncey disagreed with Oppenheimer’s take on the 2002 election. In his opinion, Chauncey said, since Lee had no management experience and would likely have acted solely as an agent of his union backers, he was distinctly unqualified to serve as a trustee. Still, Chauncey said, Yale would be wrong to propose their own agents in the election simply to defeat qualified candidates — and both Thomas and Ashe, he added, are in his view qualified for the role.

RULES ON NO CAMPAIGNING 

According to a Sept. 3 email from Schall, it has been a longstanding practice — although not an official rule — that nominated candidates typically do not campaign.

From a practical standpoint, she wrote, most candidates selected do not have the time or resources to mount a major campaign. From a governance standpoint, she added, all trustees must contribute to the Corporation without conflicts of interest or other obligations that could slant their focus away from Yale.

“In their roles, trustees are asked to deliberate and make complex, strategic decisions to ensure the welfare of the University not just now, but years into the future,” Schall wrote. “As fiduciaries, they must ensure that Yale provides the same level of, if not greater, support to current community members and future generations.”

Still, the no-campaign understanding was put into writing on the Alumni Fellow Election website in 2018 in an effort to “avoid confusion,” University Secretary Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86 told the News at the time. Previously, no mention of the policy could be found in the Yale Charter, the Corporation bylaws or the miscellaneous regulations that govern some Corporation activities.

Alumni in general have mixed views about how Corporation elections ought to be run and why their fellow graduates may not vote. Sarah Katherman ’82 told the News that while she was surprised at the low level of voter turnout, she would not change anything about Corporation elections if given the opportunity. The important thing for the Corporation, she said, is that the body is formed out of a diverse cast of members, the potential for which can be easily seen in the nominated candidates.

Katherman added that she would oppose campaigning by nominated candidates, because she believes that campaigning could derail a candidate’s focus from governing the University.

“The last thing I would want is for it to end up being like a personality contest or something where people are campaigning and trying to get your vote,” Katherman said. “I just think that’s sort of … that creates a different kind of homogeneity because it [means] the only people that would be on the Corporation are the people that would be not only willing but interested in going through that kind of a process, and personally I think that process is pretty gross.”

Campaigning, she added, would likely discourage dedicated applicants to the Corporation who are not attracted to the campaign aspect.

School of Architecture Critic Surry Schlabs ’99 ARCH ’03 agreed with Katherman, saying that he would not want a “full-blown” political campaign for Corporation candidates. Still, he added, a platform where interested voters could interact with the candidates and ask questions could help clear some of the fog.

“It’s not a political campaign, it has nothing to do with conservative or liberal ideas. It has to do with how the University best addresses its charter or its order of business, which is to educate young leaders that are going to grow up and become productive citizens of our society.”

—Richard Swett ’79, former U.S. ambassador to Denmark

Unlike Katherman and Schlabs, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Richard Swett ’79 — who is supporting Ashe’s candidacy — said he supports the campaigning of Corporation candidates.

“It’s not a political campaign, it has nothing to do with conservative or liberal ideas,” Swett told the News. “It has to do with how the University best addresses its charter or its order of business, which is to educate young leaders that are going to grow up and become productive citizens of our society.”

Swett said that after he finished his ambassadorship, he began working with some communities in Africa to build opportunities for jobs and housing. In the past 10 years, he said, he has worked with some corrupt governments that have very limited access to and communication with their constituencies. This experience, he said, proved that only through strong democracies can citizens have enough information to choose the best leader.

ALUMNI “REAWAKENED”

In the past week, both Ashe and Thomas’ campaigns have reached the signature threshold — Ashe on Sept. 1 and Thomas on Sept. 8. A third-party election services corporation is examining their petitions for double votes or invalid signatures, but Ashe and Thomas are confident that they will secure spots on May’s ballot.

“If elected, I will be the best trustee I can be, thinking of Yale’s needs for both today and tomorrow,” Ashe wrote in an email to his supporters. “I promise to do my best to understand the views of alumni/ae … Thank you for your support. I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. I love Yale and I know that together we can achieve change for a better Yale.”

Levitt, Ashe’s campaign manager, told the News that Ashe’s campaign seems to have “reawakened” alumni who otherwise had no interest in the election process. Echoing Levitt, Gigante told the News that despite typically low voter turnout in the elections, Thomas’ campaign and its goals have lit a fire in alumni who would not otherwise vote.

“In phone banking and calling alumni,” Gigante said. “I’ve spoken to plenty of people who say, ‘I don’t typically get involved in these elections. I’m not normally interested in participating in Yale’s governance, but this cause is exciting and I’m happy to participate and excited to participate.”

As Thomas and Ashe both clamor for alumni to vote, some Yale administrators in addition to Schall and Cheng told the News that the University welcomes more active participation.

Salovey told the News that “the greater the participation, the better,” and that high turnout is better than low turnout because it indicates that Yale’s alumni are investing in their alma mater. He also noted the YAA’s efforts to encourage interest in elections.

In an email to the News, Senior Trustee Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85 wrote that she and her fellow Trustees want to see as many alumni as possible casting “informed and considered votes.”

“Over the course of their tenures, trustees will grapple with a wide range of complicated, nuanced, and frequently ambiguous problems and opportunities they could not have predicted, and whose resolution will often have profound consequences,” Hill wrote. “Yale has been very wise over its 319 years to select trustees whose experience and disposition lend rigor, creativity, and wisdom to the decisions that shape our future.”

Though more than eight months away, the 2021 election stands to make history in a myriad of ways. Ashe and Thomas are the first candidates to gather enough signatures in 18 years, and Thomas will be the second female petition candidate, after Heidi Hartmann GRD ’74 reached the signature goal in 1985 but faced five nominated candidates and lost to former U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas LAW ’67. 

“Participating in elections is one of the most powerful ways any individual can influence the world they live in,” Thomas said. “Today, people are taking notice of the institutions that govern their lives and are working to hold them accountable. We face so many crises as a nation, and voters — whether in federal, state, local or private elections — realize they can help shape what we do to confront and overcome them.”

(Yale Daily News)

UP CLOSE
Yale and the City: A pandemic and a plan

Story by Jose Davila IV

Cover Photo Courtesy of Yale News

Graphic by Megan Graham

Published on September 8, 2020

Looking out onto Chapel Street from behind the closed Vanderbilt gates, a quarantined Yalie might spot off-campus students enjoying ice cream from Arethusa Farm Dairy, buying a gift to send home from Ten Thousand Villages, or emerging from Sushi on Chapel with takeout rolls ready for dinner.

To many Yale, city and state officials, this would be evidence that the University’s reopening plan is working the way it is supposed to — limiting viral spread in New Haven while benefiting the city economically.

Still, one thing remains invisible to the naked eye: the coronavirus that necessitated the closure of Old Campus in the first place.

In interviews with the News, Yale administrators and public officials remained cautiously optimistic about the University’s reopening plan and students’ return to campus and the Elm City at large. Many pointed out the economic benefits of the students’ return to New Haven, including increased support for local businesses in Downtown New Haven and the resumption of regular employment for many Yale staff members.

The reopening itself, albeit partial, was the result of much coordination and planning between the state of Connecticut, the city of New Haven, and universities — public and private — throughout the Nutmeg State. All parties to those negotiations said that communication and consistent reopening criteria have been critical to the reopening going ahead mostly as planned since early July.

Some concerns remain, however, mostly regarding the testing of staff members and the decision-making process behind the plan.

“I think there’s definitely some concern among other folks in the community about people bringing the virus back to New Haven, especially because we’ve seen such a solid decline in cases over the last few months,” Ward 1 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 told the News in an interview. “A lot of folks are also excited to have a lot of the young folks who bring so much energy and life to New Haven back. From a dollars-and-cents perspective as well, there are a lot of folks in our city who are employed by Yale and various other colleges.”

“I think there’s definitely some concern among other folks in the community about people bringing the virus back to New Haven, especially because we’ve seen such a solid decline in cases over the last few months. A lot of folks are also excited to have a lot of the young folks who bring so much energy and life to New Haven back.”

—Eli Sabin '22, Ward 1 Alder

INITIAL PLANS EMERGE

Planning for a fall reopening of Connecticut colleges and universities began at the state level in the spring, according to Josh Geballe ’97 SOM ’02, chief operating officer of the governor’s office. On April 23, Gov. Ned Lamont announced the foundation of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group, co-chaired by former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi SOM ’80 and Yale School of Public Health department chair of epidemiology Albert Ko. 

The Education Committee of the advisory group, co-chaired by former Yale President Rick Levin and former Yale Vice President for Global and Strategic Initiatives Linda Lorimer, was tasked with building criteria for higher education institutions to reopen safely. Geballe emphasized the role of Yale alumni, experts and administrators in the success of Connecticut’s pandemic response.

“Governor Lamont, throughout this whole pandemic, has understood that public health considerations have to come first. Our view is there’s no way to truly reopen the economy if you’re in a situation where the virus is running rampant,” Geballe said in an interview. “Our priority was to establish criteria for our colleges and universities to reopen safely and ensure that each of them, including Yale, were putting the necessary steps in place to reopen safely.”

Connecticut was the first state to produce such guidelines when Levin and Lorimer published a report on the necessary steps for university reopenings in early May. Presented to Lamont, the report recommended schools have robust plans to contain the coronavirus if an outbreak occurred on campus and plans to shut down again if necessary.

Levin said that Lamont thanked the committee for the report. Levin has not been involved in subsequent decision-making about reopening plans for Yale or other Connecticut colleges, he said. He declined to comment any further for this story.

Yale President Peter Salovey has been in regular contact with Lamont and Mayor Justin Elicker about the University’s plans for the fall semester, Salovey told the News in an email.

“Both the governor and mayor have been thinking a lot about higher education during the pandemic,” Salovey wrote. “They support going back to teaching and learning to the greatest extent possible while safeguarding the well-being of everyone on college campuses and in the surrounding communities.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, Salovey convened a public health advisory group as well. After initially advising about the shutdown of campus in the spring, that group turned its attention towards the University’s reopening plans starting in June, according to Yale Health Director Paul Genecin, who serves on the advisory team. The team worked with a host of other Yale bodies to make sure the reopening plan was logistically sound, including Facilities, Yale College, and all of the professional schools.

“We cannot escape the fact that we will have some COVID cases at Yale. Our goal is to prevent uncontrolled spread in this community,” Genecin told the News in an email. “Yale has created a unique system for its students and we will try to contain the spread of any infection through a series of behavioral expectations, changes to the environment, biweekly testing for students, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine.”

Genecin added that all of the elements of the plan need to function properly and in unison in order for it to be successful.

Representatives from Yale New Haven Health have also been at every meeting of the advisory group, Genecin said. Representatives from YNHH were unavailable for comment on this story.

ELM CITY COLLABORATION

“My overall feeling is that the university and the city coordinated quite well together. In general, we have been cautiously optimistic about Yale coming back in-person.”

—Mayor Justin Elicker

After Salovey announced Yale’s fall reopening plans to the University community on July 1, the University, along with other local colleges and universities, explained its plan in webinars and meetings with city officials. On July 15, Yale and other colleges presented their fall reopening plans to alders on the Human Services Committee. 

“My overall feeling is that the university and the city coordinated quite well together,” Elicker told the News in an interview. “In general, we have been cautiously optimistic about Yale coming back in-person.”

However, Yale and City Hall have not been on completely amicable terms since the pandemic started. Back in March, Yale initially declined Elicker’s request to use dorm rooms to house New Haven public safety officers if they were to be exposed to the coronavirus. After the University declined, Elicker called University of New Haven President Steve Kaplan, who agreed immediately to house first responders there. At a press conference the next week, Elicker criticized Yale for declining the request — a day after the University set up an emergency fund to aid the city’s response.

A day later, the University reversed its decision and pledged to open up 300 rooms for use, more than double the original request.

The next week, during a Board of Alders budget hearing, multiple residents called on Yale to contribute more to the city’s coffers. 

For the reopening plan, though, Elicker told the News that, when it comes to “the nuts and bolts of what we need to get done,” Yale and City Hall “work together.” He added that he still thinks that Yale needs to play a much more significant financial role in the future of New Haven, including by helping to reduce systemic income inequality by investing more in the city.

On Aug. 12, Yale representatives participated in a webinar hosted by the Economic Development Administration about local institutions’ return plans and how to ensure students and New Haveners stay safe. Representatives from Albertus Magnus College and Southern Connecticut State University also attended the briefing.

Leadership from each of Greater New Haven’s six higher education institutions — Yale, Albertus, Southern, Quinnipiac University, the University of New Haven and Gateway Community College — also participated in a conference hosted by the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce last week in which they discussed their schools’ plans and implementation thus far.

THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT

Local businesses, especially those immediately surrounding Yale and in Downtown, have suffered immensely from a lack of students and Downtown commuting workers since the pandemic began to affect the Elm City in March.

Recent closures include Clark’s Family Restaurant and Freskos on Whitney Avenue and The Beer Collective and Duc’s Place elsewhere in Downtown.

“Yale University Properties has worked in close partnership with its retail and restaurant tenants throughout the pandemic to support them through these difficult times,” Associate Vice President for New Haven Affairs and University Properties Lauren Zucker told the News in an email. “We know that the New Haven business community greatly appreciates the support of the Yale community and that appreciation is mutual.”

City officials and business owners hope the arrival of students will help to boost local businesses and the wider Greater New Haven economy. In addition to 1,821 undergraduate students living on campus — or about 36 percent of the University’s normal capacity — there are about 1,530 enrolled students living in off-campus housing in New Haven, according to Yale officials.

“I think it’s great to have the students back, enlivening the town, once they complete their quarantine,” Yale College Dean Marvin Chun told the News in an email. “Everyone’s priority is the safety and well-being of our students, staff, faculty, and the New Haven community.”

“Having students back is only going to be a positive for the economy locally. It’s going to take some time still. It’s not going to be like, ‘Hey, we’ve got students back, everything is normal,’ but it’s a good first step.”

—Garrett Sheehan, President of Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce

However, Connecticut rules in effect to curb the spread of the coronavirus — including the mandatory 14-day quarantine for students and travelers arriving from hot spot states and continued restrictions on indoor dining and live events — mean that any economic benefits offered by the return of students will remain muted for the foreseeable future.

“It’s a positive first step, but, with the way restrictions are, it’s obviously not going to be the same,” said Garrett Sheehan, the president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. “I feel confident that they’re putting in the best process possible and hopefully that works… Having students back is only going to be a positive for the economy locally. It’s going to take some time still. It’s not going to be like, ‘Hey, we’ve got students back, everything is normal,’ but it’s a good first step.”

Outside of effects on local businesses, 24 percent of the job base in the region is related to academic services, said city Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli. Having students back and paying tuition at all six colleges and universities ensures that many New Haveners will still be employed by the schools themselves.

In March, the University continued to operate critical campus functions with the support of 2,000 staff members. Now, thanks to the gradual reopening of research functions and other operations, there are about 9,000 faculty and staff with authorization to be on campus, Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart told the news in an email.

Other parts of the New Haven economy will take a little longer to bounce back, though, including tourism. The Omni Hotel remains closed, Yale is not running campus tours and Ivy League football will not happen this fall.

“Right now and through the pandemic, in addition to school coming back into session, it’s really important to start to rebuild hospitality, tourism and reopen the museums,” Piscitelli said. “Yale is an essential part of the Downtown restaurant and retail base. The students, the faculty, the vibrancy the university brings to our downtown are very important pieces to the puzzle… The meaningful nature of the work the students are doing is equally important.”

The return of students to New Haven has additional benefits for the Elm City. Piscitelli mentioned that many undergraduate and graduate students are contributing to ongoing research in the development of therapeutics and vaccines for the coronavirus. Throughout the pandemic, Yale students have contributed to the city of New Haven’s response through Yale Emergency Support-New Haven, and individuals worked for local nonprofits over the summer through programs like the President’s Public Service Fellowship. 

(Megan Graham)

PERSISTING CONCERNS

Still, some have concerns about the return of students, the decision-making process behind the plan, and the message it sends to New Haven community members.

“I definitely think the conversations were framed around how we can get students back safely and minimize the risk to New Haven, not necessarily maximizing the safety of New Haveners and questioning if it would benefit the city for students to come back at all,” Yale College Council President Kahlil Greene ’21 told the News in an email. “Conversations were, in my opinion, very Yale-focused.”

Greene served on the University’s Academic Continuity Committee, where he helped to hammer out details in the return plan. Other YCC members also served on college-level task forces concerned with the delivery methods for teaching. Greene warned there could be “severe consequences” for the Elm City if students do not “follow the rules and comply with testing” requirements and quarantine procedures.

Every Yale official who spoke with the News emphasized the responsibility the student body has to prevent an outbreak on campus and in the city and the importance of following the University’s rules on gatherings, masking and social distancing.

The lack of a coherent and mandatory testing system for graduate students, faculty and staff remains a concern for other members of the community.

Ben Oldfield, chief medical officer of Fair Haven Community Health Care, said his experience with the Yale plan comes through speaking with Yale staff members that are patients at the clinic.

“Recently, we have seen a lot of patients who have concerns,” Oldfield said. “The nature of the concerns are reasonable, but sort of general. What I’ve heard is, ‘Well, gosh, there’s going to be a lot more people at my place of work.’ … I do feel like it’s a well-thought-out plan and so I have had conversations with patients in the clinic where I’ve tried to explain the fact that I think this is a well-thought-out plan.”

Oldfield said that the Yale reopening plan was subject to health disparities between students living in New Haven and staff working alongside them on campus. The Yale student body skews healthier and younger than the staff who work in Yale Dining or Yale Facilities, for example. As such, staff — many of whom come from communities of color like Fair Haven and the Hill that have been hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic in the city and nationwide — are more likely to have higher incidence of comorbidities like diabetes or asthma. These health realities, when paired with less stringent testing for staff, contribute to a “milieu where outcomes can be worse” if a staff member were to contract the virus, Oldfield said.

Yale officials made it clear that the University was not infringing on city health resources with its testing program. Yale is also undertaking its own contact-tracing program to relieve stress on the city’s contact-tracing workforce, Genecin told the News.

Oldfield likened the plan to a luxury car — since Yale is focusing so many resources on regular testing and contact tracing, the program is more likely to prevent an outbreak than something less robust, just like a more expensive car is likely to perform better than a cheaper one.

“The Yale testing strategy is a bit of a Cadillac strategy that will be very effective. I wish we had systems like that for other folks,” Oldfield said. “I would love to see Yale take a more of a leadership role in really expanding testing into vulnerable communities.”

There remains an obvious disparity between the availability of testing for Yale community members and New Haveners unaffiliated with the University. At Fair Haven Community Health, patients can get a test within one to two days and receive a result between 48 and 72 hours after that for free, Oldfield said. He added that earlier in the summer, when states in the South and West were experiencing spikes in cases, it took labs longer to turn around results for his patients. Throughout the country, limited lab capacity remains an issue for processing tests.

“I definitely think the conversations were framed around how we can get students back safely and minimize the risk to New Haven, not necessarily maximizing the safety of New Haveners and questioning if it would benefit the city for students to come back at all.”

—Kahlil Greene '21, Yale College Council President

BEYOND YALE

Each Greater New Haven college has a slightly different plan due to differences in the number of students that live on campus and the availability of teaching materials to students at home. For example, art and culinary classes are being held in person at Gateway because many students do not have access to the equipment they need to learn. All five colleges with residential options have some students returning to campus, and all five will move to entirely online classes after Thanksgiving break.

Yale is doing the most testing of any college in the area, however. Students at Albertus and Southern were tested upon arrival, and a random sample of 5 to 10 percent of their student bodies will be tested weekly throughout the semester.

Still, each college’s overall goals are the same, and the city is working with each school to make sure its plan works for its particular culture and demographics, according to Jennifer Vazquez, director of public health nursing for the New Haven Health Department. Yale has the greatest percentage of enrolled students from outside of Connecticut of the six Greater New Haven colleges. During normal times, Yale also hosts the highest percentage of undergraduates in on-campus housing. 

“We do believe there are good plans in place. We continue to do education and track data very closely,” Vazquez said. “We want to provide support where we can, so we are very optimistic we will be able to continue to work well together.”

As of Monday night, Albertus, Gateway and Quinnipiac had not reported new coronavirus cases since classes began. As of Aug. 30, the University of New Haven had two cases among commuter students and, as of Sept. 5, Southern had reported two cases among on-campus students and staff and four self-reported cases among commuter students. As of last Wednesday, Yale has reported 11 cases since the start of August among students and staff.

Elsewhere in the state, UConn’s Storrs campus has seen 100 positive cases among residential students since testing started on campus on Aug. 14, according to data updated on Monday. 

Despite rises in cases on college campuses across Connecticut, state Rep. Pat Dillon SPH ’98 — whose district includes the New Haven neighborhoods of Dwight, West River, Edgewood and Westville — said that colleges should not blame students when things go wrong and make sure that students have the tools they need to prevent the spread of the virus.

“I don’t think it’s a threat to the city at all that people are coming back, and I don’t think it’s a threat to the students,” Dillon said in an interview with the News. “It just takes a lot of thinking.”

Dillon is also the deputy majority leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives, and her husband, John Hughes, is the assistant director of the Yale School of Medicine’s biomedical ethics program.

Dillon also said she was proud of how much progress the city and the state had made on containing the coronavirus since the worst days of April, but added that the progress “does not mean much” to her because cases could rise again if “we do not build safeguards.”

Still, Ward 22 Alder Jeanette Morrison wants students to feel welcome in New Haven provided they follow the rules.

“As long as [the students] are safe, they quarantine as expected and they do all of the testing that Yale has put in place. This is their home, too,” Morrison said. “I don’t ever want students to feel like they’re just visitors. They’re here longer than they are wherever they live, so I welcome them home.”

(Courtesy of Yale News)