A lot has been said recently about the race for the open Yale Corporation seat. Lee this, Lin that. And I’ve got to tell you, at first I didn’t care. There are over 100,000 alumni eligible to vote in the May election, but current students have no say. So I didn’t pay any attention.
But then I realized something. The media coverage of this event only discusses two of the candidates, and neither is the most qualified. W. David Lee DIV ’93, a New Haven minister, got on the ballot by petition. Maya Lin ’81 ARC ’86, an architect, was quickly nominated by the Association of Yale Alumni’s Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee as an antidote to Lee. But underneath the radar, calmly making her case amid the swirl of controversy surrounding her two competitors, is the third candidate in this race: Teresa Dahl-Bredine ’97, a graduate of Davenport College.
Dahl-Bredine is a Los Angeles screenwriter who also happens to have the second-hottest naked body in NCAA history, if you believe the playboy.com Web site. In the “Sweetest 16” tournament, Dahl-Bredine “captained” a team of former Yale coeds through four faceoffs with similarly nude representatives from other colleges. The winner of each round was determined by the discerning votes of Playboy’s online members. The Lady Bulldogs made it all the way to the championship round before losing narrowly to the University of Virginia.
Now,Dahl-Bredine has set her sights on that Yale Corporation seat. To get there, she’ll need your support, and not just because she isn’t wearing a bra.
Why should Dahl-Bredine be the next Corporation fellow? Well, besides the obvious answer — that she would bring professionalism and business savvy to a board of trustees faced with some difficult 21st century challenges — I think that there are several strategic reasons why Yale alumni should check her box on their ballots.
1. Name recognition. Everyone knows that we Yalies like surrounding ourselves with big, well-known names. That’s why we have Master’s Teas. That’s why Ernesto Zedillo GRD ’81 is going to head the globalization center. That’s why New York Gov. Frank Patelki ’67 is this year’s Class Day speaker.
And that’s why Dahl-Bredine should be on the Corporation. She is well-known by at least 25 percent of the Yale undergraduate population — that is, the male heterosexuals. Furthermore, 2,942 other individuals — many of whom were no doubt alumni — voted for Dahl-Bredine and her “team” in Playboy’s championship round alone.
Who, on the other hand, has ever heard of “the Rev. Lee”? I’ve heard of the Rev. Jackson, and the Rev. King, and the Rev. Horton Heat, but not the Rev. Lee. Sounds like an adverb. As for Lin, I’ve been told she’s famous for building a wall and a table. How big a celebrity could she possibly be?
2. Hotness factor. Not to belabor the point, but Dahl-Bredine is really hot. Hotter, in fact, than either of the other two candidates. She’s just what Yale needs to complete a sex-god triumvirate with current Corporation studs Holcombe Tucker Green Jr. ’61 and Gerhard Casper ’62.
3. Ethics. If an alumni wants his or her vote to count, than he or she should make a statement with it. Lee has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from communist unions and other shady sources. So he’s probably pretty corrupt. Shouldn’t vote for him.
In their efforts to get Lin elected, the Yale Graduates For Responsible Trusteeship, an organization not unlike the Committee to Re-Elect the President, has funneled at least $80,000 into Bloomberg-esque mailings to alumni around the world. So they’re evil. Shouldn’t vote for her either.
Dahl-Bredine, on the other hand, simply showed us her breasts. No big deal. No charges of payoffs or collusion or unfair tactics. By voting for Dahl-Bredine, the alumni will be saying, “We will not stand for any more scandal!” The moral choice is obvious.
4. Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t exist. This has direct bearing on the coming Corporation election because the supposed Carson is a supposed Corporation member.
A couple of my friends made this discovery after close examination of one of the 7 million posters plastered around campus announcing Carson’s supposed “event” on Saturday. There’s obviously something suspicious going on here. According to the posters, Carson’s supposed autobiography is called “Gifted Hands.” Carson is supposedly coming to Yale to hand out copies of his supposed autobiography to as many supposed schoolchildren as can be packed into a supposed location called “Woolsey Hall.”
Carson supposedly “rose from disadvantage” in order to “perform miraculous brain surgery in the operating room and inspire thousands around the country.” But I’m pretty sure I saw that already in a very special episode of “ER.” And “neurosurgeon”? C’mon, they made that word up.
If Carson were real, then his “gifted hands” might be distracted by fellow University Trustee Dahl-Bredine’s gifted body. That wouldn’t be good for the Corporation, and it wouldn’t be good for Yale. Luckily, Carson is simply a figment of our imaginations, so we don’t have to worry about that.
As you can see, there is simply no good reason not to vote for Teresa Dahl-Bredine.
Get the word out.
JP Nogues is a senior in Davenport College. His columns appear on alternate Fridays.