Archive: 2005

  1. Resor ’08 clinches Olympic berth

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    In just a few weeks, Eli fans may catch a glimpse of a familiar face on the ice at Turin in the 20th Olympic Winter Games.

    Yale defender Helen Resor ’08 was named to the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team Tuesday, nabbing one of 20 spots on the squad and becoming the first Bulldog ever to skate for Team USA.

    U.S. head coach Ben Smith formally announced the roster at a ceremony at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., on Tuesday afternoon.

    Resor said she had been nervous before the announcement.

    “It was very nerve-racking, but a big relief when it was over,” she said. “It was bittersweet, though. We had all worked so hard together, and three players — a defenseman, a goalie and a forward — got cut.”

    The selections came on the heels of the first 16 games of the Hilton Family “Skate to 2006,” in which 24 prospective Olympians competed against various national teams, starting with a 5-1 victory over the Western Collegiate Hockey All-Stars on Sept. 30. Resor has played in all 16 matches thus far, notching an assist for the 11-5 Team USA, and will lace up in St. Paul on Friday night in the first affair of the two-game season finale against Team Canada.

    Resor said that despite the team’s 2-1 win over Canada on Nov. 27, these next two matches could go either way.

    “We have a ways to go before the Olympics, and it might be a little impractical to think [of it as a preview of the gold-medal game],” she said. “But with Canada, it depends which team shows up.”

    Resor, who is taking the 2005-06 academic year off after completing her freshman year, turned heads as a rookie in Bulldog blue. Although she missed the first eight games with an injury, the defender delivered seven goals and 11 assists, including six goals in the final nine games to finish sixth on the team with 18 points. A potent offensive threat even from the back, Resor finished ninth among defensemen nationwide, averaging 0.75 points per game. The highlight of her inaugural season may have been a game-tying penalty shot late in the third period in a March 4 playoff game against Princeton, which the Elis would go on to win in overtime.

    Her efforts this past winter earned her ECAC All-Rookie honors and culminated with her joining Team USA in the World Championships last April. Resor has been with the national team since then and will head to Lake Placid in January for the final weeks of training before heading to Italy.

    After opening ceremonies Feb. 10, the U.S. Olympic team begins first-round play against Switzerland, Germany and Finland the following week. The gold-medal game, where Team USA won in Nagano, Japan in 1998 but fell short against Canada four years later in Utah, will take place Feb. 20.

    And now that Resor has nabbed a spot on the American roster, she will have a different type of anxiety to deal with.

    “I’m definitely going to be nervous for Turin, but right now I don’t feel it yet,” she said. “I don’t feel the Olympics have really hit me yet, but it will.”

  2. Law School group releases report on Alito

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    Three weeks before the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito LAW ’75 officially begin, a collective of Yale Law School faculty and students has concluded that the federal judge tends to rule in favor of institutional powers and limits on civil rights.

    The Alito Project, comprised of 22 members of the Law School community, released a report Monday analyzing the 415 judicial opinions written by Alito during his 15 years on the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Although the report included no specific recommendations concerning Alito’s confirmation, it concluded that the nominee’s decisions have consistently favored limits on congressional power, procedural fairness, and the rights of litigants who are not religious minorities or wealthy.

    “Judge Alito shows substantial deference to institutional actors and government entities across a broad range of issues,” project member Brian Deese LAW ’08 said. “I think that’s something that comes through.”

    But Yale Federalist Society president Joshua Hawley LAW ’06 said the report is not an unbiased assessment of Alito’s opinions. Hawley said the report’s section on reproductive rights does not consider two cases in which Alito struck down restrictions on abortion based on Supreme Court precedent.

    “I would say that it is highly partisan and an unfair representation of Judge Alito’s views,” Hawley said. “It should be understood that this is a leftist perspective that is openly critical of Judge Alito’s views.”

    The Alito Project report said Alito has consistently ruled against plaintiffs claiming discrimination and has argued to limit the scope of laws protecting workers’ and reproductive rights, but has decided in favor of religious minorities in several cases.

    Project member Jason Pielemeier LAW ’07 said Alito has tended to grant more procedural flexibility to the federal government or other institutional defendants.

    “The standards that he applies are not particularly consistent,” Pielemeier said.

    Still, Pielemeier said the report’s lack of advocacy for or against Alito’s confirmation marks an attempt to maximize use of the group’s research without appearing partisan.

    “We hope that our attempts to digest this will give other people another tool to use in making their own decision,” he said. “There was a lot of concern that the wording be very neutral, that we not jump to any conclusions or say anything that was inflammatory or exaggerated.”

    Both Deese and Pielemeier said their project research shaped their personal views, leaving them concerned about the prospect of Alito’s confirmation.

    “I don’t think that he shares a vision about the direction of American law that the majority of Americans and that I share,” Deese said.

    But Hawley said Alito’s judicial conservatism is “well within the mainstream.”

    “You see him very dispassionately applying the law as written and being faithful to Supreme Court precedent as he finds it,” Hawley said. “What you see there is just good judging.”

    To analyze each of Alito’s judicial decisions, Law School professor Owen Fiss directed a small group of students who initially divided the opinions into categories. The decisions were then read and summarized under the direction of other professors with expertise in the legal areas involved.

    Senate confirmation hearings for Alito are scheduled to begin Jan. 9.

  3. Seniors recuperate after minivan impact

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    Sonya Bonnin ’06 and Joseph Fahrendorf ’06 are recovering from injuries sustained after being struck by a minivan late Thursday night on Park Street, but Bonnin remained hospitalized Sunday.

    The students were taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital after being hit by a green Dodge Caravan, which skidded through the intersection of Park Street and Edgewood Avenue. The car struck Fahrendorf and pinned Bonnin against a railing near the entrance to Pierson College, injuring Bonnin’s legs, Fahrendorf said.

    New Haven Police officer Craig Dixon said icy road conditions caused the vehicle to slide through the intersection and into the pedestrians. The driver of the privately owned minivan remained at the scene of the accident, Yale Police Department Lt. Michael Patten said.

    Fahrendorf, who sustained several bruises and a concussion, was released from the hospital on Friday, but he said Bonnin took the brunt of the impact.

    “We were both walking on the sidewalk, but she was closer to the street,” Fahrendorf said. “She was hit harder.”

    Although he said he cannot remember all the details surrounding the incident, Fahrendorf said Bonnin lost a significant amount of blood. Still, he said he is confident that Bonnin will recover from her injuries.

    “She’s tough and she’s a fighter,” he said. “I know that she can get through this.”

    Pierson Dean Amerigo Fabbri said Saturday in an e-mail to the Pierson community that Bonnin is scheduled for “a second surgery” Sunday, but did not provide further details regarding her condition.

  4. Minivan strikes two seniors outside Pierson

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    Joseph Fahrendorf ’06 and Sonya Bonnin ’06 were hospitalized late Thursday night after being struck by a minivan on the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Park Street.

    Fahrendorf was discharged from the hospital early today, but further information on Bonnin’s condition was unavailable this afternoon, a spokesman for Yale-New Haven Hospital said.

    New Haven Police officer Craig Dixon said icy road conditions caused the vehicle to slide through the intersection and into the pedestrians.

    The vehicle, a green Dodge Caravan, came to a stop after damaging a railing near the entrance to Pierson College. Portions of Park and Edgewood near the car remained blocked by police early Friday. The driver of the privately owned minivan remained at the scene of the accident, Yale Police Department Lt. Michael Patten said.

    The Yale Daily News will provide updated information when available.

  5. Graeber agrees to leave University

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    Sociocultural anthropology professor David Graeber, a self-described anarchist whose contract was not renewed by the University last spring, announced Wednesday that he has withdrawn his petition to remain at Yale in exchange for a year’s paid sabbatical.

    Graeber filed a formal appeal in September alleging that the decision not to renew his contract was politically motivated. He was an assistant professor for six years before the Anthropology Department’s senior faculty voted not to extend his contract for an additional two years. The original decision would have required Graeber to leave Yale following the Spring 2006 semester, but Graeber said the University offered him an additional year on paid sabbatical to drop the appeal.

    “Normally, you get a sabbatical on the condition that you come back and teach the following year,” Graeber told the Associated Press. “I’m getting the sabbatical on the condition that I don’t come back and teach.”

    Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said he did not have firsthand knowledge of Graeber’s case, but he confirmed Graeber’s account of the agreement that was reached.

    The Anthropology Department will lose three other professors from sociocultural anthropology after the spring semester. Professors Thomas Blom Hansen and Eric Worby are leaving the department for personal reasons, and professor Linda-Anne Rebhun, a 10-year veteran of the department, was denied tenure in November.

    Salovey said the Anthropology Department is currently conducting faculty searches on both the junior and senior levels, but he said he has not yet reviewed candidates for the positions.

    “If the searches in Anthropology go the way most faculty searches go, they would be bringing candidates in the spring term to our attention,” Salovey said. “It’s still too early.”

    After Graeber’s contract was not renewed this past spring, an online petition protesting the decision yielded more than 4,400 signatures. Two months ago, undergraduate supporters of Graeber delivered 30 letters of protest to the Provost’s Office.

    Before beginning his sabbatical, Graeber will teach “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology” and a seminar, “Direct Action and Radical Social Theory,” next semester.

  6. Women’s swimmers win three events in Nutmeg Invitational

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    Walking into the Nutmeg Invitational at the Robert Kiphuth Memorial Exhibition Pool last weekend seemed like traveling to an away meet. The familiar Yale blue and white was overshadowed by hordes of Syracuse orange, Boston College maroon and gold, and the purple and gold of Williams College. The damper that a crowded pool and impending finals put on the Bulldogs led to an overall performance that was not up to their usual standards, but several Elis were still able to post good times and even some wins.

    Though no team scores were kept throughout the meet, Yale’s women swimmers posted three wins and another five second-place showings. Though the results were mixed, the Bulldogs were missing one of their top swimmers, Moira McCloskey ’07, who was competing at the U.S. Open in Auburn, Ala.

    The meet started off slowly for the Bulldogs, with the Eli A team finishing eighth in the 200-yard freestyle relay. One of the 500-yard freestyle heats began with Emily Cole ’09 holding an early lead, only to slip behind after a few laps to eventual heat and event winner Lisa Wittich of Syracuse. The last heat of the 200-yard individual medley saw Megan Bailey ’06 narrowly miss a second-place finish in the event.

    Yale was shut out of the top three spots in the last two swimming events of the day. But Ali Jones ’08 provided some first-day glory, winning the 3-meter diving competition handily to close out the first day of competition.

    The Bulldogs began Sunday with another slew of near misses. Nicole Swaney ’08 posted a time in 200-yard freestyle just two one-hundredths of a second shy of first, and Meg Gill ’07 was close behind. Cole finished third in the 1650-yard freestyle. Marilee Kiernan ’09 and Katie French ’09 took third and fourth, respectively, in the 100-yard breaststroke.

    In McCloskey’s absence, no Eli was able to finish better than 13th in the 100-yard backstroke. But Brenna Davis ’09 filled in for the junior in the longer distance, finishing third in the 200.

    Swaney, Laura Aronsson ’08, Caroline Dowd ’08 and Gill combined to take the 800-yard freestyle relay. Jones was unable to repeat her first-day win, but managed to capture second in the 1-meter diving competition.

    The highlight of the day was Kiernan’s time in the 200-yard breaststroke, a season best and enough to pull out a win in the event. Blake Walsh ’09 placed second in the 200-yard butterfly, and Gill, Alexis Mann ’09, Mairen Foley ’09 and Katelyn Kane ’08 provided a second-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay to close out the Invite.

    Though Yale placed in the top two in less than half the events, Yale head coach Frank Keefe said he was still pleased with the results.

    “You can get an idea of what people should focus on for championships,” he said. “Winning relays was not as important as seeing how some young and injured swimmers performed.”

    The team’s performance can also be explained by the circumstances of the meet. Keefe said the motivation for swimmers is not as strong when points are not at stake, especially with the beginning of reading period and preparations for final papers and exams. He said he released a few swimmers from their normally heavy training schedule for this meet.

    Laura Aronsson ’08 said the meet, while not as important in the long-run as the Ivy contests, was still valuable experience.

    “It’s the meet that we mostly focus on individual performance and giving people opportunities to swim events they want to,” she said. “Right now it’s an intense time of training, so our bodies are really broken down, so it’s hard to get us to swim really fast.”

    Meanwhile, competing more than 1,000 miles away from her teammates, McCloskey swam the 100- and 200-yard backstrokes, finishing 13th of 41 in the 200 and 21st of 24 in the 100. Her 200-yard backstroke time was a personal best, made more impressive by her lack of rest before the event.

    “I know that the whole team was proud and surprised how fast she could go since we hadn’t had any rest,” Aronsson said. “It’s pretty motivating for the rest of us.”

    The Bulldogs next travel to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 2 for the Puerto Rico Invite, where the Elis are defending champions. Keefe said the meet will provide an opportunity for heavy training, with six hours of swimming a day.

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  7. Rule excluding seniors from YCC candidacy needs review

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    To the Editor:

    As the longest-serving member of the Yale College Council, I have attended meetings that have become contentious, proposed resolutions whose disposition turned on a single vote and been threatened with impeachment multiple times by officers who didn’t like my candor. Through it all, I believe I have become more devoted to the democratic process, stronger politically and even more popular with the students who have re-elected me time and again. Now, as I prepare to stand for re-election to an unprecedented fourth term, I find my political enemies using an exclusionary policy and parliamentary maneuvers to stymie the will of the council and to push me out.

    Deeply embedded within convoluted language in the Yale College Council constitution is a passage that excludes all seniors from standing for election in January of their senior year. Second-semester seniors completing their graduation requirements in December are also excluded from representing their college during their final semester. The current wording of Article X, Section 2(a), which excludes 25 percent of the student body from standing for election in January, runs counter to the fundamentals of a legitimate student government. If the Yale College Council wants to start excluding students, it should be clearly stated and debated at length. Current seniors would most certainly be grandfathered in and permitted to run this coming January.

    If the president of the Yale College Council actually wants to start excluding seniors from the January elections, I encourage him to draft an unambiguous constitutional amendment to that effect. As it currently stands, the Yale College Council constitution is legally and morally invalid. We cannot abide by faulty constitutional provisions. Therefore, we should permit any senior who wishes to run in January to do so and then consider this issue at length, keeping in mind that some sort of change is necessary. Perhaps the fact that a majority of those who voted supported the Equal Access Amendment should be a cue that our elected student government should be open and accessible to all students.

    It is my hope that Mr. Syverud will see fit to resolve this issue as soon as possible so we can get back to the business of improving life for the students of Yale College.

    Alan Kennedy-Shaffer ’06

    Dec. 2, 2005

    The writer is a representative on the Yale College Council.

  8. Group to check lighting

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    New Haven Action, an organization that focuses on nonpartisan community issues, has launched a campaign to increase street lighting in the city, starting with the Dwight and Dixwell neighborhoods adjacent to campus.

    The group plans to work in coordination with landlords, residents and city officials to raise funds for its campaign, NHA member Berry Kennedy ’08 said. Members will use light sensors to check that levels of lighting in different parts of the city abide by national standards and will report any discrepancy to city officials, she said.

    NHA Clean Energy Campaign Director Brittney Hunt ’07 said she thinks inadequate street lighting encourages crime, affecting the entire community.

    “Areas which are dark are more likely to be high-crime areas,” she said. “We are working with the community to address an issue that affects everyone in New Haven and Yale.”

    Yale Police Department Lt. Michael Patten said he also thinks a lack of street lighting contributes to crime. He said the city has already worked to address this issue in some areas this fall.

    “Studies have shown that less crime happens in better-lit areas,” he said. “This fall we went out and did a lot of places again, and we ended up doing some work on Lynwood Place, Edgewood and Wall Street.”

    The Dwight and Dixwell neighborhoods have been a primary focus for NHA because they house a significant portion of the off-campus student population, Hunt said.

    Matthew Short, head of the administrative office at Chelsea Company, which owns property in the Dwight and Dixwell areas, said he had been planning a similar initiative before NHA’s campaign and will encourage the dissemination of house lamps.

    “I think it’s a great initiative,” he said. “We’re going to sponsor some private lights and look for some of the bigger landlords to sponsor some as well to get this going.”

    Patten said he thinks the lighting situation will improve in the winter months.

    “Places light up a little more because leaves aren’t there,” he said. “There was a lot of work that was done in those three particular areas by the city.”

    Students living off campus said they are enthusiastic about the prospects of increased lighting in their neighborhoods. A professional electrician should be hired to install these additional lighting to avoid any disasters.

    Off-campus resident Ben Felt ’07 said he thinks increased lighting will improve quality of life in the area.

    “I think it’s a great campaign, as a lack of lighting is one of the main things that encourages crime,” he said. “I think it will be of great help to increasing safety for students who live off campus.”

    Fidel Martinez ’07, who also lives off-campus, said he thinks increased lighting may also boost New Haven’s economy.

    “If crime goes down, it will help benefit the local economy and property values,” he said.

    But some students living in Yale housing said they think the campaign should also focus on increasing lighting around more central campus locations, especially during the winter months.

    “I think better lighting is required for the entire campus,” Jessica Jeffers ’09 said. “Night sets in so early, which encourages crime.”

    The NHA campaign does not plan to focus on campus lighting, Kennedy said, although a Yale College Council campaign supported by NHA is currently working to address the issue.

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  9. Yalies attend summit on global warming

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    As the December frost set in, some Yalies headed north to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Quebec, to discuss global warming issues this week.

    While some attendees arrived at the conference as part of a School of Forestry and Environmental Studies seminar on the political economy of climate change, other participants arrived with extracurricular organizations including the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. Government and nonprofit organization representatives, businesspeople and scientists are also attending the international conference, for a total of approximately 10,000 people.

    The Montreal Conference, which began Nov. 28 and will continue through this Friday, is the 11th annual conference of parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Simultaneously, Montreal is hosting the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, an addition to the U.N. Convention, which took effect Feb. 16. The Kyoto Protocol commits more than 30 industrialized countries to specific and legally binding emission reduction targets.

    FES Lecturer David Runnalls, who taught a seminar this semester discussing the political economy of climate change, brought students to Montreal for five days of the climate change conference. Runnalls said he thinks the trip was a valuable educational experience for his students.

    “I wanted them to first understand how complex this issue is at the international level and thus how difficult it is to begin to negotiating solutions, and to recognize the fact that the U.S. has taken a very obstinate stance,” Runnalls said. “The U.S. coalition here is a real negative force, and what you get is a rather slow and tortuous [process].”

    Runnalls said the conference’s main events were at times less interesting than the side events organized by individual attendees.

    “If you go to these side events, you begin to realize how much is really going on to prevent climate change around the world.”

    After returning from the conference, Jules Opton-Himmel FES ’07, a student in Runnalls’ class, also said the side events were more compelling. While he attended one of the delegate sessions, he mostly attended side events in the afternoon.

    “The real benefit is to see all of the different stakeholders who came, industry representatives, insurance agencies, businesses, nonprofits and government representatives,” Opton-Himmel said. “To see that carbon and climate were big-ticket items on their agenda was kind of eye-opening.”

    Runnalls’ class met every day for four days and brought in speakers including Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion. Afterwards, to encourage students to explore the conference, students were free to attend side events and to lobby, Runnalls said.

    While students said they attended the conference to both learn and observe, they said they also hope the issue of climate change will be addressed efficiently.

    “There are major hurdles to overcome,” said Opton-Himmel, who is also the co-founder of the Climate Change Student Interest Group at FES. “We knew this before, but the conference reinforced this. Hopefully it spurred more people to take action.”

    YSEC co-chair David Tracey ’08, who also attended the conference, said he hopes to work further with some of the other environmentalists he met there.

    “It is a great place to exchange information with other environmental activists,” said Tracey. “We can exchange ideas to improve each-other’s campuses and get students more interested and excited about the environment,” he said.

    Aside from potential activism, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Dean Gustave Speth said he believes that the conference provides an important complement to standard classroom education.

    “Environmental issues are increasingly international,” Speth said. “Being there in Montreal gives our students invaluable exposure to the way the world works — and doesn’t work. We think participation like that is a vital complement to book training. And who knows, it may even lead to a great job working the climate issue.”

    Runnalls said he believes that the conference sends a message to all students, whether they attended or not.

  10. Carl Goldfield impresses without the drama

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    In all of the bickering and horse-trading that have marked the contentious race for the presidency of the Board of Aldermen, there are a number of critically important issues at stake. The independence of the board from the mayor’s office, the role New Haven’s growing Latino population plays in city politics and the way the board will ultimately decide the fate of the Yale-New Haven Cancer Center have all been extensively debated. But in all of these conversations, rallies at City Hall and all of the articles that have appeared in the New Haven press, there is one question that’s been decidedly under-addressed: Who is Alderman Carl Goldfield, and what does his record say about the kind of leadership he would provide if elected president of the board?

    Instead, most of the debate has centered around the idea that current aldermanic president Jorge Perez is actually running against Mayor John DeStefano Jr. for re-election this January, with Goldfield as merely a convenient proxy. Separation of powers questions aren’t necessarily a waste of time; after all, constructive, creative tension between the mayor’s office and the board can produce better legislation, and a more vigorous debate about how best to bring change to the city. But painting Goldfield as a tool of the mayor’s office is a careless charge that ignores political history and unfairly discredits the stands Goldfield has taken during his time on the board.

    In 1998, for example, Goldfield, in response to a summer of City Hall scandals, proposed a bill that would have prevented campaign contributors from being eligible to bid for city contracts for a period of four years. At the time, board president Tomas Reyes first refused to assign the bill to a committee, and when he relented, held up committee discussions by making the aldermen wait for the mayor’s lawyer to decide whether or not the bill was even within the board’s jurisdiction.

    Paul Bass, then the editor of the New Haven Advocate, and now the editor of the New Haven Independent — a new online daily, where the coverage of the board race has largely followed the broad outline of Perez’s campaign — wrote at the time “Wow. The attorney for the mayor — the mayor who is the central figure in ethics scandals, the mayor who disapproves of Goldfield’s proposal — has to give the aldermen permission to even discuss an independent idea for how to clean up the mayor’s City Hall.” That mayor was — you guessed it — John DeStefano. DeStefano has since become a leader of the campaign finance reform movement in Connecticut, but anyone who thinks that Goldfield is simply going to toe the mayor’s line might do well to reconsider that position, or produce something more than assertions to back it up.

    The other issue that’s been raised in the board presidency race is whether or not Goldfield would continue to support the movement that’s urging responsible development of the Yale-New Haven Cancer Center. But again, there’s nothing in Goldfield’s record to indicate that he’s secretly planning to capitulate to what has been so far an amusingly ineffective campaign by the hospital. Some of the union folks I’ve spoken with who support Perez cited his stronger personal relationship with the Federation of Hospital and University Employees, but that doesn’t seem to say much about what Goldfield would do as board president. After all, he told the New Haven Register in April that, “At this point, for the hospital to come and say to us, ‘Decide this on the merits,’ is just so out there without talking about labor; it is just so far removed from the reality of the situation, it’s absurd.”

    So if Carl Goldfield isn’t really a tool of the mayor’s office and isn’t about to flip-flop on New Haven’s biggest economic development project, then who is he? He is a staunch and eloquent supporter of gay rights, an issue where the limits of Perez’s progressivism are obvious, and Goldfield has been a consistent supporter of other social-justice issues as well. This fall, he was one of the aldermen who led the board in trying to bring programming and support to New Haven’s youth. During board meetings, Alderman Goldfield is a sensible, forceful leader who, unlike some of his colleagues, is not given to grandstanding. Outside of meetings, I appreciate the work he’s done to incorporate the Online Journalism Project and to bring a new voice to the city in the form of the New Haven Independent.

    In short, Carl Goldfield is a hardworking progressive who, unlike his challenger, has avoided political theatrics. It might be well worth it for his colleagues — and everyone else who comments on the race — to take that progressive record into account in January when they consider whether the board needs a new direction.

    Alyssa Rosenberg is a senior in Silliman College. Her column regularly appears on alternate Mondays.

  11. Best Varsity Team: Women’s Soccer

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    The tale of the women’s soccer team is an epic that just got better and better with every passing week.

    Like every great underdog story, the Elis (15-4-1, 5-1-1 Ivy) were dealt a pair of tough losses to kick off the season at Duke and North Carolina. But they were done losing for the next two months. Led by the rock-solid defense of captain Eleni Benson ’06 and a fresh group of rookie talents up front, the squad rallied off 11 victories in a row.

    They faltered a bit at the close of Ancient Eight play, but blanked Brown on the final day of the season to secure the first outright Ivy championship in program history.

    At the end of the regular season, the Bulldogs garnered many honors. Benson, forward Laurel Karnes ’06, midfielder Chrysti Howser ’09, and midfielder Christian Huang ’07 were named to the first team All Ivy, while forward Emma Whitfield ’09 was given second-team honors and forward Jamie Ortega ’06 and defender Natasha Mann ’09 were named honorable mention.

    But the magic was just beginning, as Yale earned its first pair of College Cup home games ever.

    The Bulldogs easily dispatched Central Connecticut to set up a rematch against Duke. A spectacular final-second goal by Karnes made the Elis the unlikeliest of victors over the heavily favored Blue Devils and set off an on-field frenzy at Soccer-Lacrosse Stadium. Though they would falter against defending national champion Notre Dame in the Sweet Sixteen round, the 2005 team, which outscored opponents 42-16 and was a perfect 9-0 at home, will no doubt go down as the best in school history.