Archive: 2004

  1. Correction

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    A story that ran in the Dec. 8 issue, “Doox serenade White House,” misidentified the congressman who invited the Duke’s Men at Yale to perform in South Carolina after the group performed at the White House. The congressman was Rep.Henry Brown,a Republican from South Carolina.

  2. TAs support union, according to GESO card count

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    About 60 percent of Yale’s graduate teaching assistants who are teaching this semester support graduate student unionization, according to a Graduate Employees and Student Organization membership card count, the results of which were released at GESO’s membership meeting Tuesday. The vote, however, did not sway University administrators, who said they would maintain a stance against graduate student unionization.

    Although GESO officials would not release the vote totals from the 12-week membership card count Tuesday evening, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz ’83 confirmed the majority percentage at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at a press event at First and Summerfield Methodist Church. She was joined by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. — all Democrats — and Greater New Haven Central Labor Council President Robert Proto at the GESO announcement.

    Bysiewicz’s confirmation that a majority of graduate teaching assistants support unionization means that the University can opt to voluntarily recognize GESO as a union and begin bargaining with GESO over contract terms, GESO officials said.

    But Yale President Richard Levin said a ruling last July by the National Labor Relations Board affirms the University’s belief that graduate students are principally students and not statutory employees, and therefore have no legal right to form unions.

    “The typical grad student teaches three or four semesters over five years,” Levin said. “We regard their teaching experience as part of their training and education to pay professors.”

    Despite the NLRB’s ruling that graduate student teaching assistants do not have employee status at private universities, graduate students and researchers at Columbia University joined Yale over the past 12 weeks in its efforts toward gaining union recognition through card count votes. Columbia’s graduate student union organizers have also reached a majority in support of unionization, a statement released Tuesday by Columbia graduate student Shannon Clark said.

    In a second vote during GESO’s 90-minute, bi-annual membership meeting, which was closed to the press, all current GESO members were invited to vote on whether they should press Yale to receive voluntary recognition as a union. The results of the second vote will not be available until January, GESO spokeswoman Rachel Sulkes GRD ’01 said.

    GESO asked Bysiewicz to count the votes in order to lend “real validity” to the results, GESO Co-Chair Mary Reynolds GRD ’07 said.

    “It gives real weight to the fact that GESO does represent a majority,” Reynolds said.

    The membership cards that Bysiewicz counted were signed by those graduate teaching assistants who taught during the fall 2004 semester, Reynolds said. At the meeting, which she estimated was attended by more than 400 people, all GESO members, regardless of whether they are teaching this semester, were given the opportunity to sign membership cards, Reynolds said.

    The number of graduate teaching assistants registered to teach for the fall 2004 semester was not available Tuesday evening. Only a limited number of the roughly 2,500 students who are currently enrolled in the Graduate School, including about 2,100 enrolled in the Ph.D. program, are teaching assistants, Yale Graduate School Dean Jon Butler said Tuesday.

    While the time that students may serve as teaching assistants varies from program to program, Butler said, students in most of the humanities departments teach during their third or fourth year. Yale’s median time it takes students to attain Ph.D.s in humanities programs is 7.2 years, according to the school’s data.

    In April 2003, GESO narrowly lost an election sponsored by the League of Women Voters to determine support for unionization in the Graduate School. Unlike GESO’s membership card count this fall which only included graduate students serving as teaching assistants this semester, the 2003 vote was open to all graduate students.

    A number of New Haven residents attended Tuesday’s meeting, in addition to graduate students, newly-elected GESO Co-Chair Melissa Mason GRD ’08 said.

    “When I walked into the room, I was totally impressed by the people coming out — Local 35, retirees, the New Haven community,” Mason said.

    Reynolds said she hopes support from political figures such as DeStefano and DeLauro will induce the University to recognize GESO as a union. Both DeLauro and DeStefano said they supported GESO’s efforts to unionize.

    “Between their studies and responsibilities as teaching assistants, many of them are working as much as 80 hours a week,” DeLauro said. “Many more will leave this institution incurring significant debt. They deserve the chance to be heard and treated with dignity and respect.”

    Reynolds said GESO is awaiting contact from Levin to discuss the possibility of unionization in conjunction with the results of the card count. GESO will continue to work toward unionization if the University refuses to grant the organization official union recognition, she said.

    “We will continue to reach out to the 40,000 other unionized grad students across the country,” Reynolds said. “We’re calling on the University to recognize the union, and we’re building a coalition with Columbia and UPenn.”

  3. Best Team

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    Best Team-Volleyball

    After starting the Ivy League season 3-4, and on the verge of making an early exit from the conference title race, the Bulldogs rattled off seven straight wins to force a four-way tie for first place in the Ancient Eight. In the ensuing playoff, the Elis defeated Harvard in five sets before going the distance again the next day against Cornell. The Bulldogs emerged triumphant, 16-14, in the fifth, earning the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. They continued their historic season with an opening-round 3-0 win over Northeastern Conference Champion Albany before falling to No. 4 Minnesota, 3-0, in the second round.

    Runner up: Women’s soccer

    The 13-5 Eli squad equaled the most wins in program history and qualified for the NCAA tournament for the second time in three year. The team’s 5-0 start was the best in school history, and its eight-game winning streak was tops as well.

    Honorable mention: Sailing

  4. Best Female Athlete

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    Best Female Athlete — Anje Perleback ’07, volleyball

    En route to setting the Yale single-season dig record, Perlebach led the Bulldogs to their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament. A defensive specialist, the scrappy and spirited libero emerged as one of the Elis’ emotional leaders over the course of the fall. In the first round of the tournament, she put together one her strongest performances of the fall, finishing with 26 digs to become the first player in Yale history with over 500 digs.

    An outside hitter last year and in high school, Perlebach made the transition this year to libero, a position she has clearly embraced. And while her duties are limited as the libero, her contributions have hardly dropped off.

    Runner-up: Sarah Walker ’05, soccer

    The Alameda, Calif. native was the stalwart behind a solid Bulldog defense that allowed less than a goal per game (0.83). Walker, the team captain, was a First-Team All-Ivy selection, finishing third in the conference in saves (79), first in shutouts (seven) and second in goals against average (0.90). In one of her more spectacular performances of the season, she registered a shutout against then-No. 17 UConn.

    Honorable Mention: Jackie Becker ’06, volleyball; Molly Carapiet ’06, sailing; Sarah Driscoll ’05, field hockey

  5. Campaign School holds banquet

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    Last night, members of the Yale and New Haven community were recognized for their efforts to increase women’s involvement in politics.

    The Women’s Campaign School at Yale, a non-profit organization preparing women for public office, held an awards banquet at the Belvedere Conference Center, in which a variety of awards were given for contributions to the program. Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz ’83 presented Alieta-Marie Lynch, a senior administrative assistant at the Yale Law School, and Yale chemistry professor Iona Black with the Yale University Award for their involvement in the Campaign School.

    While presenting the awards, Bysiewicz said though there has been a lot of success at the state level in promoting women’s involvement in politics, with women serving as four of the six Connecticut state constitutional officers, there is a lot more work to be done around the country.

    “I would encourage all women to run for office,” she said. “It is a wonderful profession. Consider serving at a local board or commission. If I can run for office, my message is that you can as well.”

    Lynch, who works with Katie Stith, the Law School’s faculty sponsor of the Women’s Campaign School, serves as the liaison between the Yale Law School and the Campaign School. Lynch said one of her main duties involves coordinating the Campaign School’s Summer Session, a five-day educational program held at the Yale Law School to prepare women for political campaigning.

    Lynch said the Yale Law School has greatly contributed to the success of the Campaign School by allocating funds, lending its name to the program, and hosting the summer session.

    “It is vital that the Women’s Campaign School continues to empower women so that our voice can be heard,” Lynch said. “I am proud to be fostering this connection between the Yale Law School and the Campaign School.”

    Event chair Barbara De Baptiste said Black was awarded recognition because she “worked behind the scenes at everything.” De Baptiste said Black always promoted the interests of the Campaign School without seeking personal recognition.

    “I do a good job because of the people that are around me,” Black said in a brief acceptance speech. “Through [the Women’s Campaign School], my students have run for office and won.”

    In addition to awards presented to members of the Yale Community, three other individuals were recognized for their contributions during the banquet. Etha Henry, the vice president for programs of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, received the Community Service Award. Patricia Carbine, the co-founder of Ms. Magazine, a feminist publication begun in 1971, was presented with the George Alden Dean Award. This award is the most prestigious recognition given by the Women’s Campaign School.

    “In Ms. Magazine we were trying to change the world,” Carbine said. “We fought for credit equity, equal rights in education and — reproductive rights. There aren’t enough women in office to protect our hard-fought advances.”

  6. Yale keeps patent stats secret

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    Though Yale participated in a survey of 165 colleges and universities showing the institutions had filed for a record number of patents and earned almost $1 billion in combined licensing revenue last year, the Yale Office of Cooperative Research requested the school’s data not be published individually. The University was one of seven, including Columbia University, whose data remained anonymous.

    OCR Managing Director Jonathan Soderstrom said the office has withheld attribution of specific data to Yale’s name because it believes licensing income does not reflect other positive results of University innovations, such as new biotechnology companies and large sums of venture capital.

    “I don’t believe the measure of our success should be the royalty dollars brought in,” Soderstrom said. “So this is my little world of protest.”

    Over the last five years, Soderstrom said, the expansion of biotechnology in New Haven has helped the city’s economy. The start-ups have attracted more than a billion dollars in equity investments and have increased real estate values, he said.

    The survey, released this month by the Association of University Technology Managers, also showed universities reported a greater number of marketable scientific discoveries in 2003 than ever before, a trend to which Yale has contributed, Soderstrom said. He said the number of inventions and innovations coming out of the OCR has been steadily increasing.

    When AUTM reported Yale ranked fourth among American universities in revenue generated from licensed discoveries in 1999 — earning more than $40 million in royalties — the OCR attributed most of its returns to therapeutic drugs such as ZERIT, which is used in HIV treatment.

    In 2001, after Yale law students and the organization Doctors Without Borders pressured the University and Bristol-Myers Squibb to make the drug affordable in South Africa, the University stated it has no control over the applications of its patents once licensing agreements are signed. While Bristol-Myers independently decided to provide the drug at reduced cost shortly after the issue was publicized, concerns that Yale’s patent process was unethical persisted on campus.

    Daniel Kevles, a Yale professor specializing in science history, said licensing profits create an important incentive for inventors and promote medical and technological advances.

    “Much that is discovered and that contributes to the advancement of knowledge is neither patented nor patentable, especially in fields such as cosmology,” Kevles said. “But the argument for patenting is that it provides incentive to innovation. Quite a lot of investment is required to transform an invention into a marketable product, and patenting protects the innovator.”

    Revenue generated from invention royalties can be used more flexibly by the University than donations specified for particular uses, Kevles said.

    “All universities treasure unrestricted income, because that sort of money is difficult to come by,” Kevles said.

    He said universities began seeing significant profits from technology-transfer into the private sector during the last decade.

    Still, only nine percent of the surveyed schools reported more than $20 million of licensing revenues in 2003, with the majority of institutions earning $1 million or less.

    Soderstrom said a portion of royalties received by the OCR are given to inventors on a sliding scale — providing them with 50 percent of the first $100,000 of licensing revenue, 40 percent of the next $100,000 and 30 percent of any additional income — while another portion of the royalties is used by the University for furthering research and education. He said Yale scientists will occasionally, but not frequently, step in to lead a company based in technology they developed.

    Yale Provost Andrew Hamilton said the University does not direct faculty research based on profitability, but encourages faculty to pursue their own academic interests.

    “The University as a general policy doesn’t dictate the emphasis of a particular research program, so there’s no overarching dictum from the University that particular research areas should be pursued by faculty,” Hamilton said. “The very nature of faculty research is that faculty pursue — interesting problems and determine the most exciting areas their research will pursue.”

  7. City businesses see holiday spike in sales

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    Retail in New Haven has continued to boom since Thanksgiving weekend as customers window-shop less and buy more in anticipation of the holidays.

    While some shop owners are confident their success will continue through the new year, others have raised concerns that sales will drop as students travel home for winter break.

    Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce President Tony Rescigno said although businesses may feel a minor effect of student departure, most retailers this year should expect a rise in business during the weeks when students are out of town.

    “Sales are up, streets are busier and there’s lots of enthusiasm about what’s being done in New Haven today, as compared to yesterday, and certainly four to five years ago,” Rescigno said. “Merchants look forward to a very, very good next few weeks.”

    Efforts by the New Haven Town Green Special Services District, Market New Haven and the New Haven Office of Cultural Affairs to attract business downtown during the holiday season are visible throughout the city. These groups have spent over $100,000 on their most expensive holiday campaign in New Haven history, which includes consumer incentive promotions like free movie tickets and gift certificates.

    University Properties director David Newton said he thinks the foot traffic around New Haven in the past few weeks has increased significantly from this time last year. He said people’s general knowledge of the special events going on in New Haven during the holidays has had an extremely positive effect on business.

    Retailers have particularly benefited from “Late Night Thursdays,” a promotion in which the city encourages all stores on Broadway and Chapel to remain open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays so that holiday shoppers can stay out longer. Although most stores on Broadway remain open until 9 p.m. or later on a daily basis, Broadway shop owners said they benefit from other stores’ being open late as well.

    Paul Cuticello, the owner and manager of the Paul Richards shoe store, on the corner of York and Elm, said he has made some of his biggest holiday sales on Thursday evenings.

    “Because other stores in New Haven are open late too, many more people are walking around and end up stopping in my store than other nights of the week,” Cuticello said.

    Shop owners said Thanksgiving break served as a good indication of whether stores will lose business when students leave New Haven again at the end of the semester. Cuticello said his store receives a lot of business from Yale students, but because the day before Thanksgiving was one of the busiest days since his store opened last spring, he does not expect a slowdown over winter break.

    Tammy Hackett, the co-owner and manager of the recently opened Oolongs Tea Bar, said so far, the majority of her business has been from Yale students. Business practically came to a stand-still over Thanksgiving break, but she said she hopes the same will not occur over winter break as the shop’s name recognition increases among locals.

    “We have put together a lot of special holiday packages that should appeal to New Haven employees and residents as the weather gets colder and Christmas gets nearer,” Hackett said.

    More seasoned Broadway retailer Phil Cutler, who has run Cutler’s Compact Discs for over a decade, said his busiest days of the year have always been the 10 days before Christmas when most Yale students are long gone. But he said he also receives a good amount of business from students in the weeks leading up to winter vacation.

    “This past weekend was crazy and much more crowded with customers than in past years,” Cutler said. “It could have been the good weather, all the holiday promotion, or just the fact that once the calendar turns to December, people realize they have to get moving.”

  8. M. squash downs Penn in opener

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    Classes may have ended on Friday, but the men’s squash team is just getting started.

    In their first match of the season, the Elis, ranked third in the nation, crushed No. 4 Penn, 7-2, Saturday at the Brady Squash Center.

    The Bulldogs were thrilled to open the 2004-05 campaign with a decisive victory over a much-improved Quaker team.

    “This Penn team was clearly the strongest they have fielded in my four years at Yale,” captain Gavin Cumberbatch ’05 said. “It was great to take them on, right out of the chute, and make a convincing statement about our bid for national and Ivy League titles.”

    The Bulldogs played solidly throughout the lineup, winning seven of the nine individual matches. Julian Illingworth ’06, the third-ranked player in the nation, only lost six points in his 3-0 victory (9-1, 9-4, 9-1) over Penn’s Gilly Lane.

    “We knew they were really fired up to get at us because this is the first time in a while that they had a team really capable of competing with us,” Illingworth said. “As a whole we did well to match their energy, and we knew we were the stronger and more skilled team.”

    The Elis’ bottom six played with the intensity of twelve, winning all six of their matches. The Bulldogs received particularly strong performances from Moshe Sarfaty ’08 and Ho Ming Chiu ’08. Sarfaty, playing at No. 4, won his match, 5-9, 9-6, 9-1, 9-4, while Chiu played at No. 6 and prevailed, 9-7, 9-3, 9-3.

    “Our two best performances were from two of our freshmen, Moshe and Ho Ming,” Illingworth said. “Both got their college careers off to a good start with wins at the four and six positions, which should give them confidence going into the season.”

    Josh Schwartz ’05, who had missed time due to injury, was back in the lineup on Saturday. Playing at No. 2, Schwartz fell in five games (9-3, 1-9, 0-9, 9-5, 9-4) in a heated match against Penn’s Rich Repetto.

    “Recovering from an injury, Josh played a great match at the number two position and looks strong for the rest of the season,” Cumberbatch said. “Across the board it was a great team performance and the guys are ready to get back to work.”

    The Elis are expected to contend for both an Ivy League and a national title this season, although they will face steep competition over the course of the winter. The Bulldogs will have to overcome No. 2 Harvard for the Ivy League crown, and No. 1 Trinity has not lost a match in over five years.

    Despite the difficult path ahead of the Elis, Yale head coach David Talbott is optimistic.

    “Our team goals are to win the Ivy League and a national championship, nothing less,” Talbott said. “We have enough talent, we just need to maximize.”

    Illingworth stressed the importance of the Harvard match.

    “Our outlook for this season is really just that we are setting up our entire season for our dual match with Harvard February 12,” Illingworth said. “This match will almost certainly determine the Ivy title, and I will not consider our season to be a success unless we win that match.”

    The Elis return to action Jan. 14 against Williams in Williamstown, Mass.

  9. W. bball looks for first victory in N.H.

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    Still in search of its first win of the season, the Yale women’s basketball team will try to end its dry spell tonight against the University of New Hampshire in New Hampshire.

    The Elis (0-5) will also be looking to end a much longer draught. The Bulldogs last faced off against the Wildcats (2-3) back in 1995, when New Hampshire won to improve to 7-0 all-time against Yale.

    The Wildcats have run into a few potholes early in the season but have fared better than the Elis. New Hampshire lost a close match to Quinnipiac 68-65 but did win an even closer overtime game against Dartmouth, the projected Ivy League champion for 2004-05. The Wildcats also won their last game at the Commerce Bank Wildcat Classic Tournament against Tennessee State in a decisive 66-42 battle.

    Despite the slow start, the Elis have a lot of potential waiting to break through.

    “We’ve been playing great defense this season,” point guard Tory Mauseth ’05 said. “We have that talent to make some big plays on defense.”

    The Yale defense has improved over the past few games. Just last week against Quinnipiac, the Bulldogs blocked 11 shots, including a Yale-record five from forward Julie Mantilla ’07.

    Mantilla and center Erica Davis ’07 lead Yale in blocks with eight each for the season so far, while New Hampshire’s leading blocker, point guard Lindsay Adams, has only six.

    Davis, who was the team high-scorer in four of her past five games, currently leads the Elis in scoring, with 15 points per game, rebounding, with 7.4 boards per game, and steals, with eight per game.

    On offense, the Bulldogs are still looking for improvement. In three of its last five games, Yale has shot under 40 percent from the field and has only averaged 25.9 percent from behind the arc.

    The Wildcats have struggled offensively as well. New Hampshire is averaging a mere 32.8 in field goal percentage and 25.4 in three-point percentage.

    “[The Wildcats] don’t like to rush things,” Davis said. “They run their offense until they get the lay-up or jump shot they want.”

    Some of the biggest threats coming from the Wildcats will be Adams, who is currently six-for-11 from the three-point arc, and freshman point guard Ashley Cerniglia, who hit three three-pointers against Tennessee State for a total of eight for the season.

    One of the biggest deciding factors will be the turnover situation, which has been the Elis’ biggest flaw. So far Yale has turned the ball over 142 times this season while the Wildcats have committed only 86 turnovers.

    “The turnovers have been a big problem we’ve been working on,” forward Chinenye Okafor ’07 said. “Almost every turnover we’ve made ended in a lay-up from the other team.”

  10. Looking towards tough training, swimmers host Nutmeg Invitational

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    Extra practices, increased training, and course finals may not mix well with two-day swim meets. But the message is clear for Yale’s men’s and women’s swim teams — there will be no excuses this season.

    “We have to learn how to adapt to our training better so we can get up and race,” men’s swimming team captain Dave Lange ’05 said. “It’s a lot of swimming crammed into 48 hours, but no excuses — it’s the same way for conference meets.”

    The Yale men’s and women’s swimming teams competed in the two-day Nutmeg Invitational last weekend, held at the Kiphuth Exhibition Pool in three separate sessions between Saturday and Sunday.

    Both by design and due to snow, last year’s Nutmeg was a smaller meet, with only three teams making the trip down to New Haven. But this year’s field included 10 teams from a multitude of collegiate conferences, including the Big East’s Syracuse, Atlantic 10’s University of Massachusetts and NESCAC’s Williams.

    Several swimmers said the meet’s position — in the middle of difficult training and right before finals — made it difficult to swim fast. But the swimmers also said the meet was necessary to maintain focus as the tough training of the season begins.

    “It’s mentally challenging, but it’s also important to stay sharp before the training trip [to Puerto Rico],” Erin Carlstrom ’05 said. “It’s good to get in the right mindset. It’s difficult with papers and finals, but that’s what we’re here for.”

    Even when they failed to race their fastest, Eli swimmers did make several trips to the winners’ podium.

    The women’s team particularly dominated the distance events, with Cristina Hession ’07 winning the 500-yard freestyle and Laura Aronsson ’08 and Allison Rogers ’05 going one-two in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

    Captain Caroline Stephenson ’05 added a third individual victory for the Bulldogs in the 400-yard individual medley, an event that saw five Elis place in the top ten and three in the top five. While neither the 400-yard IM nor the 1,650-yard freestyle is swum in dual meets, the Bulldogs’ strong performances in those events bodes well for when those events are held at the Ivy Championships.

    Finally, the Elis showcased their depth in the 200-yard freestyle with a win in the 800-yard freestyle relay. The team of Hession, Katelyn Kane ’08, Chase Butler ’07 and Nicole Swaney ’08 not only won the event but managed to catch a Boston College foursome that led by more than a second at the halfway mark.

    The men found similar success in the distance events, with Kent Garber ’07 and John Atkinson ’05 taking first and second place, respectively, in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

    The similarities continued through the 800-yard freestyle relay, where the team of Kieran Locke ’06, Atkinson, Quinn Fitzgerald ’05 and Andrew Foss ’07 took first. Relays were a strength for the Bulldog men all weekend, with the 200-yard freestyle relay and 400-yard medley relay teams both taking second and the 400-yard freestyle team taking third.

    Geof Zann ’07 provided the other individual win of the weekend in the 100-yard backstroke. And while he was beaten out in the 200-yard distance by the University of Massachusetts’ Evan Swisher, Elis took half of the top six spots in that event.

    Swimmers from other schools said that the meet was in a difficult position for them as well, due to increased training and imminent finals. But most added they were glad to know they were working towards better times when the workload lessens later on in the season.

    “Sometimes it’s too much, overwhelming really, but in the end it’s all worth it,” Southern Connecticut State University freshman Monica Kawecki said. “I’ve never trained this hard, so my times aren’t as good as they could be, but I know by the end of the season they’ll be where I want them to be.”

    When asked to describe what he thought of the meet, Yale head coach Frank Keefe was quick to give a concise answer.

    “Long,” he said.

    “It’s basically a training meet,” Keefe said. “We’re swimming all of the NCAA events in two days, but the NCAAs are three days.”

    Keefe said that he saw the meet as a chance to fit some racing into what would otherwise be a long period of continuous training.

    “We haven’t had a meet since before Thanksgiving and we won’t have another one until January,” he said. “That would be a month and a half without competition. This is another chance to get up and swim.”

    But Keefe made it clear that he did not expect any less out of his swimmers at the Nutmeg.

    “I’m never OK with how the team swims,” Keefe said. “I always expect more. Every time we swim, there’s a chance to get better — better times, better technique, better attitude. When you aren’t making those improvements, you’ve got to step back and reevaluate what you’re doing.”

    Potential for improvement was visible in the disconcerting number of Bulldog swimmers who were disqualified. Stephenson, Tom Hardy ’06 and Joe Mack ’05 were disqualified in the 200-yard breaststroke and the men’s 200-yard medley relay team was caught by the referees as well.

    The disqualifications were not unique to Yale swimmers, and several swimmers commented that the refereeing was particularly strict. But several swimmers admitted that the disqualifications indicated room to improve upon team performance.

    “It’s a lack of focus,” Lange said. “Those are the things we really need to tighten up. We can’t have slips like that. Regardless of the times, we have to execute well.”

    Both the men’s and women’s teams next compete Jan. 9 at Maine. In the interim, the Elis face their toughest training of the season, including a training trip to Puerto Rico over winter break.

    “People know this is when the focus shifts towards academics, but as long as people keep showing up we’ll be fine,” Lange said. “I’ll be letting the guys know this is the hardest time. There’s a ton of yardage — it’s really important to take this seriously and come to Puerto Rico ready to roll.”

  11. Yale Corp. to talk academic reforms

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    The Yale Corporation will discuss its progress in implementing the undergraduate curricular reforms recommended in the 2003 academic review as well as the University’s initiatives to run a more efficient budget at its meeting this weekend, Yale officials said.

    The University’s highest decision-making body traditionally keeps its agenda secret, but officials this week offered some hints of what may be discussed this weekend. The Corporation will not approve a budget until next spring, but its members will discuss the University’s finances, Yale President Richard Levin said. In addition, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said he will update Corporation members on curricular changes and introduce a three-year timetable for implementing the academic review recommendations.

    “It’s an opportunity to brief the Corporation and to get input from them about clarifying problems,” Salovey said. “I’m looking forward to that opportunity.”

    Last month, faculty members approved an overhaul of Yale College’s Credit/D/Fail policy, which, beginning with the Class of 2009, will no longer allow students to use the Credit/D/Fail option to fulfill distributional requirements. Just last week, professors approved a preliminary list of a broad array of courses that fulfill the new science and quantitative reasoning requirements that will go into effect this fall.

    The Corporation will also discuss the University’s efforts to manage facility maintenance and construction with greater efficiency, Vice President for Finance and Administration John Pepper said.

    “We need to see [facility maintenance and construction] kept up in a way that meets the needs of students, faculty and everyone, and does it in a way that’s more efficient, given the enormous needs for program expansion,” Pepper said. “At the same time, we need to do all that without running a deficit.”

    Yale’s long-term financial plans will be a key item on the Corporation’s finance committee’s agenda, Pepper said. By next year, Yale officials say they intend to eliminate the deficit in the University’s operating budget. Officials have projected a $15 million deficit for the 2004-2005 operating budget, down from a projection last year of $30 million. The University’s target is to balance the budget next year, Levin said.

    “We plan on getting there,” he said.

    The Corporation will spend a significant amount of time discussing construction and renovation issues because of the considerable resources the University has devoted to these projects, Corporation Member Len Baker ’64 said.

    “We spend a huge amount of our resources on buildings,” Baker said. “We need to get as much mileage out of our dollars as we can.”

    Baker said he expects the Corporation to discuss ongoing searches for vacant administrative posts, such as the vice president for development, one of Yale’s seven officer-level positions. The search to replace the University’s highest-ranking fundraiser, Charles Pagnam, who resigned in October, is still in its early stages, and a short list of candidates has not yet been identified, Levin said.

    Some Yale College Council officers will meet with Corporation members when they arrive on campus later this week but will not attend the Corporation’s closed-door meeting this weekend, YCC President Andrew Cedar ’06 said. The student government officers will address issues such as dining hall restrictions, admissions and financial aid and environmental concerns, all of which were brought up at November’s YCC-sponsored open forum with Levin, Cedar said.