Vice President of Development Inge Reichenbach, who championed the University’s most recent fundraising drive to a record-breaking goal despite the worldwide economic recession, announced today that she will be retiring at the end of June.
Reichenbach, a native of Germany, came to Yale in 2005 following nine years in a similar role at Cornell University. During her tenure at the University, she launched and guided the five-year Yale Tomorrow fundraising campaign to its $3.88 billion total, surpassing its goal of $3.5 billion. In an interview Tuesday night, Reichenbach said the campaign’s conclusion was the natural time for her retirement.
“Her work during the last six and one-half years will have lasting benefits for every school and the entire University,” said University President Richard Levin in an email to senior administrators, major donors, the Corporation and other alumni groups.
When Reichenbach stepped down as Cornell’s vice president of alumni affairs and development in 1995, she left Ithaca, N.Y. having broken similar records at Cornell. At the time, Reichenbach’s departure from Cornell was widely viewed as a successful recruitment for Levin and a disappointment in Ithaca.
In her time at Yale, Levin said that Reichenbach had made a “profound contribution” in strengthening the development office by nurturing leadership and hiring talented staff.
Reichenbach expressed pride in the work that she and her staff had done over the course of the campaign, and she thanked those around her at Yale for her experience.
“I found the experience at Yale to be extremely interesting and rewarding. I have admired the academic strength of the university and faculty as well as what’s happening here in the sciences and other areas. It’s very exciting,” Reichenbach told the News. “For me personally, it’s been a real privilege to be a part of it and to help a little bit by raising money.”
Reichenbach said she plans to move back to Ithaca to work on international fundraising projects that she has not had time to focus on while at Yale.
Levin said Tuesday night that the search for Reichenbach’s replacement will be an international search, but he also said that he would not rule out promotion from within the Office of Development.
In a clear demonstration that Harvard students measure their “superiority” by their university’s single-digit acceptance rate and their pinnies, a group of Harvard entrepreneurs have launched an “#OccupyYale” pinny — prominently displaying the school’s 6.2% admissions rate — for Cantabs to wear at The Game this weekend.
The new design by the “Harvard-Yale Merchandise Team” features a crimson and white pinny that says “OCCUPY YALE” on the front and “WE ARE THE 6%” on the back. According to the design’s website, Cantabs with an “#OccupyYale” pinny will be able to “show off [their] guns at the tailgate and let everyone know that [they’re] Occupying Yale.”
The pinnies come in three colors: crimson with white lettering, white with crimson lettering and a reversible pinny with both colors and prints. Single-colored pinnies cost $15 while the reversible option will cost $20. The blog Gawker called the pinnies the “worst Harvard-Yale merchandise ever.“
“Not sure what will happen when these twerps start hurling spheroids down the field, but between this pinnie and Yale’s publicity-magnet quarterback Patrick Witt, Yale definitely won the PR game this year,” Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor writes.
The Harvard-Yale merchandise website is also selling an assortment of other products, ranging from “Yale Sucks” sunglasses and “F— Yale” pinnies to Harvard-Yale Game Day flasks and “Yale: Illegitimate since 1701” T-shirts. That’s so legit.
We guess we admire Harvard’s entrepreneurial, Zuckerbergian spirit, but we’d like to point out that it seems like at Harvard, the first step to success is immediately dropping out.
Roughly 50 students lined the sidewalk in front of the Study earlier this evening, holding signs to protest an information session held by the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley.
“Twenty-five percent, is too much talent spent!” the protesters chanted, making reference to the fact that one in four Yalies go into finance or consulting. Their signs included slogans such as “Dreams not dollar$” and “Your career decision is a moral choice,” among others.
Other chants include:
It’s not what it seems, don’t abandon your dreams
Give change a chance, don’t go into finance
Make change, not money
We’ve got talent, we’ve got smarts, but our careers are moved by our hearts
They take you in and spit you out. That’s what these jobs are all about
In the Study’s penthouse, the chants could not be heard and the Morgan Stanley event went on with quiet music in the background. Representatives of Morgan Stanley and the Study declined to comment. A planned question and answer session was scrapped because of the protest, students present said.
When police asked the protesters to move away from the sidewalk in front of the Study, the protesters crossed the street and held an “alternative info session,” where Jennifer Klein, a Yale history professor, and Annie Lai, a teaching fellow from the Law School, spoke to the crowd.
“Think about what kind of jobs would create a genuinely productive economy that doesn’t leave workers secure, that doesn’t leave people without houses, and that doesn’t hollow out neighborhoods,” Lai said.
Each of her sentences was repeated using Occupy’s “mic check” system, which ensures that speakers can be heard over a large crowd.
For Elis looking to have fun on weekends, the common phrase “all roads lead to Toads” is becoming a subject of debate. For the past 37 years, Toad’s Place on York St. has been a staple weekend hot-spot for Yalies, but today, a growing number of students are finding reasons to seek other entertainment venues. Students interviewed said that changing crowd demographics and a growing number of social alternatives are eroding Toads’ decades-long dominance over college nightlife.
University administrators hoping to improve the sexual climate on campus through student-based leadership councils are facing resistance from leaders of undergraduate organizations. University President Richard Levin has advised student groups to develop committees similar to the Singing Group Council (SGC), which oversees Yale’s 15 a cappella groups, and added that the administration would start by expanding leadership councils to fraternities and sororities.
A new exhibit in Rudolph Hall provides a look back at two iconic figures in Yale’s architectural history.
On Monday, “Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation” opened at the Yale School of Architecture to celebrate the life and work of Charles Gwathmey ARC ’62 and Robert Siegel, the architects behind the renovation of Rudolph Hall and the addition of the Loria Center on York Street. Designed to showcase the close relationship between art and architecture in many of their firm’s structures, the exhibit focuses on eight projects from 45 years of practice.
THE WEATHER
High of 60 degrees, low of 44 degrees, rainy.
THE FOOD
In the colleges
Breakfast: Grits, Waffle Bar, Banana Bread
Lunch: Vegetarian French Onion Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Chicken Quesadilla, Chef’s Choice Express Bar, Pork Carnitas, Green Chile Quesadilla, Thai Vegetable Wrap with Tofu, Refried Black Beans, Red Beans & Rice, Cut Corn, Romaine with Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette, Insalata Di Grano, Tuscan Potato & Pepper Salad, Cherry Jubilee Cupcake, Oatmeal M & M Cookie
Dinner: Chicken Lazio, Vegan Ravioli With Organic Tomato Sauce, Chef’s Choice Express Bar, Marinated Grilled Steaks, Sautéed Onions, Sautéed Mushrooms, Roasted Zucchini & Yellow Squash, Romaine with Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette, Insalata Di Grano, Tuscan Potato & Pepper Salad, Tiramisu Cake
In Commons
Breakfast: Steelcut Oats, Waffle Bar, Omelets To-Order, Cage-Free Scrambled Egg Whites, Cage-Free Scrambled Eggs, Apple Cinnamon Dairyless Pancakes, Red Bliss Home Fries, Banana Bread
According to a Yale professor’s recent study, high savings rates in certain countries may be due to how citizens speak in the future tense.
In a working paper published in August, Keith Chen, an associate professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, argued that speakers of languages with a “weak,” or less distinguished, future tense are more likely to save money for the future. According to the paper, speakers of these languages feel more connected to their future selves because of the linguistic difference, which makes them 30 percent more likely to have saved money in a given year. However, three linguistics professors interviewed said they remain deeply skeptical about the implications of Chen’s research for their field.
Chen said he first realized language and saving might be connected early in his career: His parents, “invariant savers” who grew up in poverty, would remind him to save more because he “wasn’t speaking Chinese,” he said.
“Different languages make you pay attention to different things,” Chen said.
For example, Chen said, in English one says “I will be meeting with a student tomorrow,” but the equivalent phrase in Mandarin Chinese is “I meet with student tomorrow.” He explained that languages such as English use a “strong,” clearly differentiated and obligatory future tense, which creates a “bigger wedge between you and ‘future you’.” By contrast, languages with a weak and non-obligatory future tense, such as Chinese, make less of a distinction between the present and the future, he said.
These differences then force the speaker to subconsciously consider his or her relationship to the future differently, Chen said.
Chen said his research brings economic and linguistic trends together. In economic theory, he said, uncertainty about the future makes people value the future more. Therefore, a language that is less specific about timing will lead a speaker to save more for the future. In linguistics, the present and future can feel more similar if they are expressed in the same way, so it is easier to save for a future that feels less different, Chen said.
However, Robin Lakoff, professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, disputed Chen’s connection between economics and linguistics.
“The notion that having lexically specified tenses in a language (like the Indo-European languages) makes it harder for a speaker to identify his future self with his present self seems very far-fetched indeed,” Lakoff wrote in an email to the News. “You could just as well argue that Indo-European languages, because they have explicit future forms, encourage speakers to envision the future as distinct from the present, and therefore save for that time.”
Chen said his research showed that native speakers of certain languages, including Japanese, German, Scandinavian languages and Chinese, all of which have weak or non-obligatory future tenses, were correlated with higher savings rates. But he admitted that it remains difficult to separate language and culture. In the conclusion to his paper, available on his website, he acknowledged the objection that language may be reflecting — rather than causing — the differences in savings trends between cultures.
Tom Wasow, chair of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University, wrote in an email to the News that he was “very suspicious [of Chen’s] quick-and-dirty bifurcation of languages” between those with a strong future tense, and those with a weak one.
“I suspect [Chen’s] classifications came from economics, not linguistics,” Wasow said.
Chen said linguists have been unreceptive to his findings because many believe that all languages are equally conducive to cognition.
The idea of grammatical forms affecting thought has been controversial since the 1920s, when it was introduced by linguist Benjamin Whorf, Lakoff said. She added that most linguists would agree that the forms available to speakers of a language make it easier, but not overwhelmingly so, to express or comprehend certain ideas. Nonetheless, she described Chen’s results as “nonsense”.
“It is amazing how people without training in linguistics consider themselves expert enough to make pronouncements about language,” Lakoff wrote. “It’s as if I made statements about economics on the grounds that there are words written on our money.”
Professor Robert Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale, said that Chen’s general premise sounded plausible, but is likely only “part of the story.” He suggested other causes for China’s high savings rate, such as the country’s one-child policy.
Going forward, Chen said he is still searching for future policy implications for his findings.
“We’re not going to strip future tense from English, or switch the national language to Finnish,” Chen said.
Chen’s paper was published through the Cowles Foundation, which provides support for economics research at Yale.
Occupy New Haven, which began with a march of around 1,000 people on the Green exactly a month ago today, held a march and speak-out session today in commemoration of the Occupation’s start. But the day’s events have taken on an even greater significance for the group given events in New York Tuesday morning, when the NYPD, despite angry protestors cleared Zuccotti Park, a symbol of the movement.
City officials say they have no such plans here in the Elm City. City Hall spokesman Adam Joseph said at the start of New Haven’s Occupation that the city’s primary concern with the movement is its safety, and has teamed up with organizers by providing portable toilets.
Joseph reaffirmed that view on Tuesday.
“In New Haven we have a 373-year tradition of public assembly on the New Haven Green — as long as the Occupiers are conducting themselves in a safe and responsible manner, we’re fine with that,” Joseph said. “It’s city and police policy that as long as everybody is following the rules, following the law, we support it as a city.”
NHPD spokesman David Hartman added that the police department has no plans to do “any such thing.”
But New Haven occupiers find the events in Manhattan to be “troubling.”
“Obviously I’m disappointed, I don’t find [the removal] to be justified,” Occupy New Haven participant Ronnie Neuhauser said. “There are a lot of tactics used to get protestors to leave with no good justification.”
The Elm City’s Occupation, however, was not as concerned with the protestors’ removal from the park as it was with the well-being of one of their own, said Occupier Faith Stillman. A New Haven Occupier in a wheelchair known only as Sara was at Zuccotti Park, Stillman said, where she was allegedly pushed out of her wheelchair and kicked on the ground during the police cleaning.
Stillman said Sara’s status is currently unknown, but that the New Haven occupiers feel “outrage” at the situation.
“It’s bulls—,” Stillman said.
But New Haven Occupiers aren’t letting the day’s events hamper their plans. Occupy New Haven organizer Ben Aubin said that the group still had a lot of positives to offer, and that anybody is welcome to join and learn about the group.
Neuhauser said he thought the protestors’ removal from Zuccotti Park would only bring more people out for Thursday’s set of worldwide protests celebrating the movement’s two-month anniversary.
“I don’t think [the removal] will stop much because the movement is liquid now, it’ll move to other places,” Neuhauser said.
Occupy Wall Street began on Sept. 17 and has since attracted worldwide attention.
CORRECTION: Nov. 15, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated NHPD spokesman David Hartman’s name.
Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom GRD ’56 got political last week when he weighed in on Mitt Romney’s bid to become the next Republican presidential nominee. In the Sunday Review of the New York Times, Bloom, the author of 1992’s aptly titled “The American Religion,” revisits his interest in American faith, this time arguing that Romney’s Mormonism makes him a poor candidate for the Oval Office.
In establishing his argument, Bloom compares contemporary Mormonism with the faith and practices of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, who published the Book of Mormon back in 1830.
Referring to the contemporary LDS Church as a “Salt Lake City empire of corporate greed,” Bloom writes:
Should Mr. Romney be elected president, Smith’s dream of a Mormon Kingdom of God in America would not be fulfilled, since the 21st-century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has little resemblance to its 19th-century precursor. The current head of the Mormon Church, Thomas S. Monson, known to his followers as “prophet, seer and revelator,” is indistinguishable from the secular plutocratic oligarchs who exercise power in our supposed democracy.
“The oligarchs of Salt Lake City,” Bloom believes, “betray what ought to have been their own religious heritage.”
Yet Bloom admires Smith’s keen acumen for leadership, and defends the Mormon Church from some of its harshest critics:
Our political satirists, with Mr. Romney evidently imminent, delight in describing the apparent weirdness of Mormon cosmology and allied speculations, but they forget the equal strangeness of Christian mythology, now worn familiar by repetition.
Bloom, however, ultimately questions the role Romney’s Mormon faith would play were he to take up office in the West Wing:
The Mormon patriarch, secure in his marriage and large family, is promised by his faith a final ascension to godhead, with a planet all his own separate from the earth and nation where he now dwells. From the perspective of the White House, how would the nation and the world appear to President Romney? How would he represent the other 98 percent of his citizens?
“We are condemned,” Bloom concludes, “to remain a plutocracy and an oligarchy.” Though Bloom’s somber forecast for America’s future will not likely influence the content of primary debates or campaign ads, Bloom’s observations add an interesting, albeit controversial, perspective to contemporary American political and religious dialogue.
I am America and so can you, international students of the world!
A recent study published by the Institute of International Education — a private nonprofit organization that offers fellowships and issues data related to international education — found that the number of international students enrolled in American colleges increased by 5 percent in the 2010-11 academic year to 723,277, up two percent from the previous year and 32 percent from a decade ago. According to a Monday press release by the IIE, most of the growth was caused by increasing numbers of Chinese students, especially undergraduates, who increased by 23 percent in total to 157,558 students and by 43 percent at the undergraduate level.
“It is positive news that our higher education institutions continue to excel in attracting students from all over the world, and in preparing American students to succeed in an increasingly global environment,” said Allan Goodman, President and CEO of the Institute of International Education in the press release. “Educational exchange in both directions furthers business and cultural ties between the United States and other countries.”
Among the Ivies in 2010-11, the study reported that Yale had 2,254 international students, to Harvard’s 5,594 and Princeton’s 1,661 international students.
California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts and Illinois were the five states that took the top spots for hosting international students, with the University of Southern California leading the pack for the tenth year in a row, with an international enrollment 8,615. The top two fields of study for international students were Business and Management (22 percent) and Engineering (19 percent). Women represented about 45 percent of the total number of international students.
The press release also stated that international students contribute more than $21 billion to the U.S. economy, through the money they spend on tuition, living expenses, books and supplies, transportation, and health insurance.
Graham Smith, a senior producer for NPR’s All Things Considered, had a lot to share with the students who attended Monday’s Master’s Tea in Calhoun College. Instead of summarizing the talk, I’m going to follow Smith’s own method for putting together an episode of the show:
“It’s called All Things Considered but we don’t really consider all things,” Smith said. “We’re going to consider the most interesting stuff today, and the really important stuff, and a couple of things that made us laugh.”
Let’s begin with the most interesting and really important stuff.
In one section of his presentation, Smith talked about a particular experience he had as an embedded reporter with a particular group of soldiers in Afghanistan. His report, published Nov. 12, 2009, details the destruction of a Stryker armored vehicle by an IED. During the Master’s Tea, Smith also read excerpts of his personal blog and shared photographs, some of which are on NPR website.
Really Important:
Something horrifyingly beautiful is encapsulated in Smith’s photographs. A smoldering Stryker armored vehicle sits in a field that, lacking the destruction, would resemble the kind of picaresque rural landscape you see in America. The afternoon has set in, and the sun casts a golden light on the grass over which the soldiers are running. Some houses, obscured by trees whose colors are beginning to change in the early November, are visible in the background. Breathtaking mountains loom over the scene – purple mountain majesties towering over what look like amber waves of grain.
We don’t often see this side of the war. We see the grim faces of soldiers, or tanks rolling through the desert, or wounded men being loaded into helicopters. We seldom see, with the exception of the poppy fields, the beauty of the country being ravaged by the war. But this beauty stands in stark contrast to the soldiers’ raw emotions and fear — they understand the importance of building relationships with the Afghan people. The troops genuinely want to help the people. But the difficulty of measuring success and the inability to rely on the locals for accurate information — as many fear reprisal by the terrorists — frustrates.
Something that made me laugh:
Smith said that when he was in Baghdad, the NPR building was right across the street from the Fox News building.
“We got together all the time and played ping-pong, and had parties, and it was great,” Smith said.
The New Haven Police Department saw a late surge in applicants for its new class of cops Monday, a major bump in the department’s ongoing attempts to expand its ranks.
Though applications for a new 45-person class of officers closed at 5 p.m. Monday, a line of candidates were still waiting outside the NHPD’s Union Avenue headquarters for processing at 5:30 p.m. The lingering line testified to a late surge in applicants that saw more than 700 submissions, according to NHPD spokesman David Hartman, who added the number exceeded expectations and represented a particularly strong showing after only a “very discouraging” 200 had applied before last Friday.
“I think we probably would have liked [the number of applicants] to be a little higher,” said Richard Epstein, the chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, on Monday night. “But the quality is going to be more important than the quantity.”
The NHPD was concerned last week because it had only received “slightly over 200” applicants by Thursday, a “terrible number” given recruitment efforts kicked off Oct. 31, Hartman said. Applicants trickled in through the day Friday and by day’s end the department had over 400 applicants; then, on Monday over 300 put in their applications, bringing the final total to “between 700 and 750,” he added.
This is the first time the NHPD recruit application has been available electronically, but applicants must submit their forms in person at NHPD headquarters, so many applicants may have put off submission to the last moment, Hartman explained.
“When was the last time you handed a paper in two weeks before deadline?” asked Elizabeth Benton, who is serving as City Hall spokesperson in Adam Joseph’s absence.
Epstein agreed that the late torrent of applications occurred because “people procrastinate,” but noted that the total applicant numbers were lower than in some past recruits.
The current recruit round’s 700 plus applicants was “on par” in number with the previous round of applications, which took place in early 2007, Benton said. But Epstein said this year’s numbers fall short of the “over 1,000” applicants the department has received at times in the past decade.
Epstein said he did not know the reason for the decline in applicants, though he said he thought that “maybe it’s a less attractive industry” because of perceptions of dangers on the job.
Hartman said he would have expected applicant numbers to be “quite high” given the sluggish economy and difficulties of obtaining employment as lucrative as the NHPD’s — recruits will earn a yearly salary of $40,626, according to the NHPD’s officer application form.
But the difficulty of NHPD training combined with the precariousness of public sector jobs amid ubiquitous budget cuts may have deterred candidates, Hartman said.
“Who wants to go through the rigors of police academy and the physical agility requirements to find that you’re the last one hired in your class [and therefore] the first subjected possibly to layoffs?” Hartman said.
Potential applicants may have also been deterred by the layoffs of 16 NHPD officers in February, he added.
The NHPD is not the only police department in the Elm City looking to expand. Since the University is expanding, particularly with construction of two new residential colleges slated for as early as 2014, the Yale Police Department is looking to add to its ranks, Assistant Chief Michael Patten said, adding that exact numbers have not yet been determined.
The YPD and NHPD currently have 87 and 412 officers, respectively.
Get ’em quick. Tickets are on sale for this weekend’s Harvard-Yale Game. Current students get in free at the gate with a valid Yale ID, and each student can purchase up to four guest tickets, which are available at the ticket office and cost $5 each. For those without an in, tickets can cost as much $30 apiece.
Confidence. Though Harvard has clinched the Ivy League title, Dean Amerigo Fabbri of Pierson expressed confidence in Yale’s ability to conquer the Crimson. “The stars are in perfect alignment for triumph: the Oracle spoke and said that Lux et Veritas will shine in victory over a darkling meadow of Crimson sorrow! Thus will begin our Great Break and Thanksgiving!” Fabbri wrote in an email to students.
Quiet down, kids. Registered parties will not be allowed in any of the residential colleges this Friday, per the decision of the Council of Masters, Silliman College Master Judith Krauss announced in an email Monday night.
Meanwhile, following the announcement that Mario Monti GRD ’68 was named the country’s new prime minister, University President Richard Levin GRD ’74 had kind words for his fellow economist in an interview with the News. At Yale, the two both studied under famed economist James Tobin. “It’s quite reassuring that Italy would turn to a person of such substance in such a crisis,” Levin said. “He’s a fine economist and a person of real quality.”
No need for Febreeze. A group of students are planning an Occupy protest outside the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley’s information session this afternoon. The protest will start with a sign-making at the Dwight Hall library at 4:30 p.m. before moving in front of the Study Hotel at 5:30, in time for Morgan Stanley’s info session inside.
The Freshman Class Council has produced a new T-shirt for The Game that will go on sale this evening. The new design has removed the references to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates that gave Harvard Licensing pause.
In memoriam. The University will conduct its annual campaign with United Way of Greater New Haven in honor of former Provost and University Librarian Frank Turner GRD ’71, who died last November at age 66. Turner supported the United Way for decades, his wife Reverend Ellen Tillotson said in a letter penned by Provost Peter Salovey last November.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1938 Journalist Richard Boeckel delivers a lecture at the Law School on radio’s influence on print media.
