Over 100 students gathered in Commons Wednesday night for a sold-out cooking demo and dinner by guest chef Gabriela Osada. His menu was inspired by the recent anniversary of Mexican independence and included such dishes as “Ensalada de Cajeta,” “Chilaquiles Rojos” and “Tamal Dulce.” This event is part of Yale Dining’s Guest Chef Series, which has previously invited such visitors as Lorenzo Boni, Italian cuisine expert, and will continue to invite guest chefs throughout the school year.
Nancy DiNardo, head of Connecticut’s Democratic Committee, praised the Yale College Democrats on Monday night for their work on winning both statewide and local elections this past November. DiNardo said local politicians can often be the most responsive to the public.
Yale captain Brandon Wai ’07 unloads a forehand against Manhattan last April at Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. This weekend, the Elis swept a two-game homestand.
As Quinnipiac University considers its own campus expansion, Hamden residents voice concerns about possible repercussions on small-town life.
Attackman Tyler Casertano ’08 sprints upfield away from a Holy Cross defender on April 4, 2006. The Elis demolished the Crusaders, 13-7, on Saturday.
At its first meeting this fall, the governing board of the New Haven Democracy Fund, a public campaign finance program, elected Jared Milfred ’16 its chair.
Milfred, who leads Democracy United, a group at Yale promoting good-government, was appointed to the board this summer. His installation gave the body back its quorum, which means it can resume doing official business.
“Now that we once again have enough members to constitute a quorum, I hope we will internalize lessons from last the last election cycle — which was by all measures an extraordinary success — and make several important procedural tweaks to ensure the program’s continued good functioning,” Milfred said in an email.
Last year’s mayoral election saw a record four candidates opt into public financing. Milfred said he will seek to emulate the work of the board’s former chair, attorney Patrician Kane. Beyond building personnel back up, the board will continue this fall looking into the feasibility of extending public campaign financing to aldermanic races.
At no point in the 313-year history of the University has the endowment ever been larger.
According to a Wednesday morning Yale Investments Office press release, the endowment rose to $23.9 billion in fiscal 2014, the year beginning July 1, 2013 and ending on June 30, 2014. The return on the University’s assets was 20.2 percent over the same period, beating the returns of every other Ivy League institution that has released its figures.
In fiscal 2013, the endowment was $20.8 billion.
In the period before the Great Recession, the endowment soared, reaching a high water mark of $22.9 billion in fiscal 2008. However, the next year, the University’s assets lost nearly a quarter of their value.
But, the endowment has strongly rebounded, and this year, the University benefited from investment gains of approximately $4.0 billion.
Three weeks ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said its assets returned 19.2 percent over the past year. Dartmouth earned the same return in fiscal 2014. The University of Pennsylvania’s endowment grew by 17.5 percent over the same period.
On Tuesday, Harvard reported that its assets returned 15.4 percent in fiscal 2014.
Yale’s longer term returns remain in the top tier of institutional investors, according to the press release. Yale’s endowment returned 11.0 percent per year over the 10 years ending June 30, 2014. This surpassed broad market results for domestic stocks, which returned 8.4 percent annually, and for domestic bonds, which returned 4.9 percent annually.
The press release also noted that relative to the estimated 7.6 percent average return of college and university endowments, over the past decade, Yale’s investment performance produced $8.4 billion in added value.
Over the last 10 years, the endowment grew from $12.7 billion to $23.9 billion, net of spending.
Yale’s endowment return in fiscal 2013 was 12.5 percent.
Are you Sirius? Blue State Coffee updated its Facebook status yesterday with a meme of Daniel Radcliffe captioned “Espresso Patronum.” “A little Tuesday afternoon #HarryPotter humor never hurts…” the status read, a statement which is actually not at all true.
Invitation to heckle. William Deresiewicz is on campus for a Master’s Tea.
Making meese. You might be having a dry spell at the moment, but the moose in Connecticut are single and ready to mingle. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has advised motorists to watch out for increased moose activity because moose mating season runs from now through the end of next month. The state’s moose population is still relatively small, at 100, so please leave the moose lovers be.
Unbeetable. Red velvet cupcakes are back at Claire’s Corner Copia. And yes, they are flavored with organic beet’s for anyone who doubted Claires commitment to serving the most hipster food this side of Book Trader.
World War III. The Office of International Students & Scholars is hosting game night tonight. Risk is likely to take on a whole different flavor when played in a room full of internationals.
Up in smoke. The BAR and Caseus crossover pizza last night was “Smoke Show” — a smoke box barbecue pizza with smoked tomatoes and crispy chicken skins.
Surprise paintball! Cornell students have been getting hit by paintballs in a series of drive-by’s in Ithaca according to IvyGate. The only description of the culprit is that his vehicle is a dark colored sedan. The case has been taken on by the local police, though no students have been seriously injured. “So even if other Ivies might make fun of Cornell for its rustic sensibilities, at least Ithaca has crime statistics that would make Yale jealous,” according to IvyGate.
Where the cultured were.The Brentano String Quartet performed Tuesday night in the Morse Recital Hall.
Sisters from another Ivy League school. During Princeton’s sorority recruitment process this year, two hundred and eight-three women participated. Princeton also has chapters of Kappa Kappa Gamma, Kappa Alpha Gamma and Pi Phi.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY 1961The Russian Club holds an opening event featuring a Soviet film.
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It is that special time of year again: job recruitment season. Seniors scurry about from job fair to information session to coffee chat, exhausted, confused and desperate for employment. And, as we all know, the majority of job fairs, information sessions and coffee chats they attend will be with firms in consulting and finance.
I wish I could write a column decrying this unfortunate societal fact; it practically writes itself. But I cannot because: a) it would be deeply hypocritical (I most likely will be working for a hedge fund next year) and b) I do not really think it is all that bad, or at least not bad in the way people usually describe.
I think the reason so many of us feel vaguely uncomfortable with taking a job in consulting or finance, and why some choose to publicly decry it, is the sense that in doing so we are selling out. For many of us the mantra of our lives has been to follow our passions. There are certain activities, we are told, which will bring unique meaning to our lives and that should guide our choices of employment.
But many of my peers and I are discovering that we do not have any obvious passions. Or rather, our passions do not transfer easily to employment. There are some jobs we know we do not want to do for various reasons and perhaps we have far-flung aspirations for positions we want to hold when we are 50, but neither of these provide much guidance as to what we want to do for the first few years after graduation. Finance and consulting firms take advantage of this uncertainty and provide a structured transition into adult life.
Taking one of these jobs is not selling out because, for the most part, we have nothing to sell. We are not turning our backs on our loves. The popular conception of passion — as some inherent quality that presents itself and then guides one’s life — is not the whole story. Passion is developed. People learn to find meaning in their work, and their lives more generally, and in the process attain fulfillment. Few people grow up passionate about accounting, or sales, or indeed finance or consulting, and yet thousands of people lead meaningful lives in those very professions.
A job in finance or consulting provides an opportunity to develop passions relevant to the working world. They can teach you to love working with a team, or the excitement of delivering a product, or the thrill of speaking in public. I do not think these industries are uniquely well suited to the development of these passions, but then they are not uniquely flawed either. Combine that with the fact that they are readily available, they pay well and open other doors, and it makes sense that so many seniors will flock to these jobs. I certainly think they are as well suited to the task as most other jobs in the private sector.
A job in finance or consulting, indeed really any job right out of college, should be viewed as an opportunity for self-creation. It gives us the chance to craft our passions, to discover what motivates our work. That will then inform our adult lives.
Of course, there is a downside to the ubiquity of finance and consulting on campus. These industries carry with them a level of prestige and some students seek to use that prestige as a proxy for passion. Instead of looking at these jobs as opportunities to discover what they enjoy, what they dislike and what excites them in the working world, these students view them as the first steps to an ill-defined career of acclaim, in which content is secondary to popular regard.
When that is the case, finance and consulting become crutches that we lean upon instead of standing on our own two feet. They hinder our development. This, I believe, is the real danger of these jobs. They are not much worse, nor much better, than most first jobs out of college. But they open the path to a seductive complacency. Just as a Yale education means nothing if all you got from it was the name, two years at Bain or Goldman is a waste if all it ends up being is a line on your resume.
We are responsible for shaping our lives. It is an intimidating task, but one that must be taken on. Our careers are a way to do that. We are extremely fortunate to have the chance to work in competitive industries. We should not feel guilt taking advantage of these opportunities but we cannot waste them in the pursuit prestige.
Isa Qasim is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact him at isa.qasim@yale.edu.
I can’t remember the first time I heard the term FOMO, but I remember silently remarking upon how accurate it was — and how shamefully relevant it was to my life. Whether scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed or catching up with friends on a Sunday morning after a night of staying in, FOMO certainly has a presence in my life at Yale.
The acronym has now become somewhat ubiquitous, standing for “fear of missing out.” It describes the social anxieties we feel when we, for whatever reason, are unable to attend certain events and gatherings. I’ve always thought of myself as a secure person, generally unfazed by quotidian social dramas. Yet I definitely feel the effects of FOMO, when I get uneasy about missing the most trivial events.
For me, and probably for most of us, FOMO was at its strongest freshman year. Every event was a chance to find new friends, and so everything I missed resonated as an opportunity lost. As a junior I have a close-knit group of friends and I know that staying in to study on a weekend won’t affect that (and for the record, I also now know that friendships aren’t fostered at Toad’s). But still, every so often I get that nagging anxiety, that little voice telling me this weekend, that party, that one dinner I missed was the very best of the year.
For the next two weekends, I will be out of town for family obligations and for whatever reason that is causing me angst. I feel confident in my relationships, so what is causing this anxiety? I think it’s a sense, one not entirely warranted, that the weekends are the only time to truly let go and catch up with friends.
At Yale, our weekdays are jam-packed with classes, meetings and practices. Everybody has her own schedule and extracurricular activities. We often have a sense that we can’t afford to set aside time to simply hang out so it can be easy to go an entire day without seeing some of our closest friends. Even with my roommates, it is rare for all of us to be awake in our apartment at the same time because we are on such different schedules. With all of our varying classes and activities, it is easiest for us to rely on the weekend to see each other and catch up.
All too often, we try to separate our social life from our academics; we study hard on weekdays so that when we are finished we can spend time with our friends without having to worry about work. But there is no good reason for this harsh divide we draw between our hangout time and our studies. In fact, it’s not healthy for us to act as though our academic and social modes are so distinct.
College affords us the freedom to build our own schedules, moving beyond the strict routines of high school. And we should take full advantage of that freedom by integrating work and play, finding a balance between the two. Rather than reserving weekends for socializing, we can carve out time for friends in our daily routines. Go to the gym or the library together, take time to share meals and sacrifice half an hour of sleep to catch up with roommates at the end of the day.
Rather than getting upset about missing the next few weekends at school, I’m going to make a conscious effort to beat the FOMO. After all, I’m realizing I’m not missing out on my only chance to connect with friends — those opportunities come every day. If we build our schedules with more intention and thought, there’s no reason to ever feel we’re missing out.
Ally Daniels is a junior in Berkeley College. Contact her at alexandra.daniels@yale.edu.
The full-page ad in last Tuesday’s News in which Chef Stu Comen laments the centralization of food preparation is indeed alarming, not just for the future of dining hall excellence but for what this kind of corporate thinking might point to in educational policy. It is true that centralization and standardization help assure a certain level of quality. If we are talking about soup preparation, then centralization might help assure that one particular chef in a certain college does not oversalt or overpepper the soup to his particular taste, thus rendering it inedible by many. But the same centralization stymies invention, individuality, creativity and personality — whether in food preparation or education.
We have seen that “common core” can help schools that were failing students rise to a certain level of minimal competence. But the same common core can stifle the spirit of teachers and students alike, keeping teachers from adding works of literature, for example, that do not conform to the same, dull round that has been centrally determined. Bill Gates’ Big History Project similarly has the ability, if it is not strictly imposed, of offering a more thoughtful approach to some fundamental questions; but if mandated, the Big Project can easily become a Big Mistake, of monstrous proportions and consequences.
There is a line, not perhaps a direct budget line, but a line of reasoning, that connects centralized food preparation to Internet instruction and cost-saving devices such as large lecture courses. And there is an irony that our students, who prize their right to “shop” their courses, are finding that there is no longer any reason to shop their dining halls now that the salad bar is the same wherever they go.
As a member of the English Department, I am particularly grateful to my extraordinary colleague Janice Carlisle for insuring that all sections of English 114 adhere to certain minimum standards in the teaching of composition; but I am ever so much more grateful for her protecting the right of each instructor to shape the syllabus and assignments to his or her own taste and vision. Once we eliminate the analogous combination of virtues from the dining halls, the intellectual fare may be next in line.
Leslie Brisman
Sep. 16
The writer is a professor of English.
On climate, now or never
As the U.N. Climate Summit 2014 begins, xpectations are running high on whether we will be able to achieve a new global climate agreement. But even with the impressive range of countries represented at the summit, skepticism remains.
I do not entirely blame those who have lost hope in the U.N. climate negotiations. So far, the U.N. climate talks have missed just about every deadline. The developed nations promised two decades ago to halt their rise in GHG emissions but carbon levels continue to rise. Next we were promised a sequel to Kyoto in 2009 and the Copenhagen talks failed. Now we have a 2015 deadline to get a binding agreement that will enter into force after the extension of the Kyoto expires in 2020. But who’s to say that the buck won’t be passed on again!
In this globally relevant time period, I will try my hardest to look for hope. Here are signs of hope:
First, an interesting act on part of the UN Secretary General has been to extend invitations to several business leaders and CEOs. These companies will be keeping a close eye on environmental policy outcomes, making this important Summit not only a political gathering but also a conglomeration industries and corporations.
Second, another interesting development in the talks is the birth of a new negotiating alliance from Latin America and the Caribbean. Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama and Guatemala and several island nations like Maldives have turned on the heat on the larger nations. These countries have emerged as an important bloc that stimulates the otherwise selective discussions.
Third, the participation of young people in the negotiations has been extremely encouraging. As observers, trackers, advisers, activists or media reporters, young people have kept the pressure on! The creation of the Arab Youth Climate Movement along with several other regional movements makes me believe that all is not yet lost. There is much to do and the road to Paris has just begun but I have no doubt that our spirit and energy shall fuel these talks.
The rhetoric is high, but then so are the stakes. The lives and livelihoods of millions will be on the table in New York and Paris.
In a massive transformation, the vacant parking lot next to Tyco Printing on Elm Street will become home to suite-style apartments for dozens of graduate and professional students.
The Graduate & Professional Student Housing Committee, which brings together administrators and graduate student representatives, has worked to revitalize the empty space by developing new Yale-owned apartments for graduate students, the Deputy Vice President for Human Resources and Administration Janet Lindner said. Specific plans and timeline for the project are still in the development stages, Lindner added.
“I’m eager to see new housing for grad students and the University will certainly announce plans once they’re in place and approved,” said Lindner, who led the Committee alongside Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kim Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86.
At the start of the last academic year, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) worked with the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) to aggregate feedback from students about housing options on and off-campus. In general, students voiced concerns about being treated poorly by some New Haven landlords and expressed the need for additional Yale-sponsored housing, said Lauren Tilton GRD ’16, who serves as the GPSS Advocacy Chair.
“I think there’s general excitement that we might be able to offer more options for housing so that students don’t feel like they have to settle with landlords who don’t seem committed to their properties or their tenants,” Tilton said.
The housing committee has worked to add apartment-style units in the site of the parking lot, unlike the current dorm-style housing available in the Hall of Graduate Students (HGS). Wendy Xiao GRD ’17, who serves as Chair of the GSA Facilities and Healthcare Committee, has recommended that units in the new apartments be suite-style, complete with kitchens, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a central living area. This design, Tilton added, will help to create a better sense of community within the building itself through suite-style spaces that facilitate all graduate student living needs.
“When you have a good place to live and like where you live, it’s one less stressor in their life,” Tilton said. “For undergrads, the colleges are your space, and we want grad students to have that too.”
While some graduate students prefer off-campus housing, others students desire the convenience of the on-campus experience, said Chair of the Graduate Student Assembly Joori Park GRD ’17.
New on-campus units will cater specifically to students who prefer to live on campus, such as many international students who may not have the option of looking at apartments before moving to New Haven, Park said. The reliability and convenient location that come with University-sponsored housing is crucial for them, Park added.
“There’s no one solution for graduate students,” Park said. “But the Graduate and Professional student dormitory on Elm Street is a step in the right direction.”
Currently, the only Yale-sponsored housing for graduate students near central campus is located in HGS, which houses 168 students, and Helen Hadley Hall, which houses 178.
Correction: Sept. 24
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the only Yale-sponsored housing for graduate students near central campus is located in the Hall of Graduate Studies. In fact, Helen Hadley Hall also houses 178 graduate students on central campus.
About 20 miles East of Yale on the I-95 lies a cluster of towns that, while geographically proximate to the county’s urban core, look and feel worlds away from New Haven.
In the communities that abut the shoreline — Madison, Branford and Guilford — beach properties abound. The towns that sit inland feature acres of farmland and marshes, miles of hiking trails and flocks of hawks and falcons. Historic homes line Route 1, the main thoroughfare running through these towns.
Even the homes that do not boast historical landmark status are large and remote from their neighbors, dotting backwoods roads and cul-de-sacs. Notables ranging from Jim Calhoun, the retired head coach of the University of Connecticut’s powerhouse men’s basketball team, to Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, have vacation homes here.
The quiet charm of these shoreline communities belies the fervor with which two Yalies, both Democrats, are mounting first-time bids for elected office in overlapping districts here.
Ted Kennedy Jr. FES ’91, a health care lawyer and scion of the most famous political family in U.S. history, is running for Connecticut state senate in the 12th District, which includes Madison, Branford, North Branford, Guilford, Durham and Killingworth.
Kennedy faces Republican businessman Bruce Wilson Jr. in the race to replace Edward Meyer ’57 LAW ’61, who is resigning his seat after a decade on the job.
Even with Meyer’s resignation, Yale Law School may not lose representation on the shoreline. Not if Alex Taubes LAW ’15 — a 25-year-old, champion collegiate debater and Democrat — can wrest the 101st House District from incumbent state rep. Noreen Kokoruda, 67.
A Republican, Kokoruda has represented the district, which includes Madison and part of Durham, since 2011. Before that, she served 14 years on Madison’s Board of Selectmen.
Gary Rose, who chairs the department of government and politics at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, said a Democratic victory in these towns would solidify a broader shift in partisan politics in the state. Conventional wisdom holds that Connecticut is sharply divided between urban blue — New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford — and suburban red — Darien, Greenwich and New Canaan. That view overlooks creeping progressivism, Rose said, pointing in particular to swing towns that line the shoreline on the outskirts of New Haven.
For the most part, these are wealthy communities. Madison’s median family income is $125,199, the 22nd most prosperous in the state. Yet there are residents who feel the weight of unemployment; these towns are not impervious to economic trends that have sacked cities like New Haven and Hartford.
“The recession officially ended five years ago,” Kennedy said, but for the average person, it does not feel that way.
Because that sentiment prevails among voters, the candidates are in the precarious position of trying to motivate their base while distancing themselves from the Democrat at the top of the ticket.
On a late August weekend, in a two-room-warehouse-turned-Democratic-headquarters in Madison, Jean Fischer, who was nearing her 84th birthday at the time, was picking up call sheets to make calls for Taubes. On the sheets — prepared in VoteBuilder, an online voter database system marketed as “the indispensible tool for winning elections” — one column was struck through in red Sharpie: the instruction to ask voters about Governor Dannel Malloy.
“He’s going to do badly here,” Taubes said of the governor, who is up for reelection against Tom Foley, a Greenwich businessman and Republican. “We don’t ask people about Malloy.”
Two weekends later, Kennedy offered a similar appraisal, though his words were less blunt: “I think it’s going to be a close race.”
Instead of state party affiliation, then, these two candidates are emphasizing their local roots. Taubes was raised in Madison, and Kennedy, who turns 53 on Friday, has lived in the area for about 30 years. Twenty of them were spent in Branford, his current home.
They are also glued to the campaign trail, insisting on face-to-face interactions with voters. Kennedy said he learned this brand of politics from his father, the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.
With a young staff schooled in the Obama-style ground game, Taubes thinks he will win by outworking his opponent. At the Connecticut Democratic State Convention in May, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy took Taubes aside for a lesson in local politics, the young candidate recalled.
“You’re running for state rep … you’re the same age I was when I first ran,” Taubes recalled the first-term senator from Connecticut telling him. “I have one piece of advice: knock on doors.”
At each door, Taubes and Kennedy are telling personal stories that, while otherwise considerably different, both feature chapters at Yale and in New Haven.
For Taubes, attending law school at Yale meant the chance to do clinic work in New Haven. The summer after his first year, he worked on economic development in the city, an experience he said shaped his understanding of inequality and economic stagnation. He would later offer then-mayoral candidate Toni Harp advice before debates. Last fall’s election, he said, informed his decision to return to his parents’ house at the beginning of the year and run for office in his hometown. Harp, unlike her opponent, was “of New Haven,” he said. He wanted similarly deep ties to the community he would be asking to elect him.
Kennedy’s schooling, political and otherwise, spans Connecticut and Massachusetts, the latter state’s political history all but synonymous with his last name. He broke with his family’s predilection for Harvard and went to college at Wesleyan instead. He would return to Connecticut several years later for master’s work in New Haven at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Abjuring politics for years, Kennedy is now entering the family business — but in Connecticut and on a more local scale than has been Kennedy tradition.
Still, there is fanfare. At the candidate’s announcement this spring, at a local public library in Branford, guests held signs that read, “Finally!”
There was scarcely a stop on Kennedy’s Saturday tour of Branford, Madison and Guilford in which he went unrecognized. Some greeted him as they would a celebrity, saying they had seen his picture in the paper when he was a kid. Others began rattling off demands, presuming his victory.
“Forgive me for recognizing you — you’re not exactly incognito,” Beverly Keener, a vendor at the Dudley Farm in Guilford, told the candidate.
This excitement will cause Democratic voters to turn out in droves, Taubes predicted. Even if voters have lost faith in the governor, he said, their support for shoreline Democrats reveals a deeper optimism about Connecticut’s future — a trust that economic conditions will improve with continued investment.
Fischer, who has nearly 60 years on the candidate for whom she was making calls, put it more simply. The race is about whether these towns will become more like Greenwich and the rest of Fairfield County, or whether they will remain accessible to mixed-income people, perhaps even those coming from the county’s urban core, New Haven.
“He’s up against real hard stuff,” she said, assessing Taubes’ chances.
She had little patience for being interviewed, turning instead to her candidate, coaching him on his message, on vote-pulling and on self-promotion. Stand in front of the table to shake voters’ hands, she told him.
Leaning forward, Taubes rested his clasped hands on his knees and listened.
Union members and leaders will gather on the steps of Sterling Memorial Library at noon today with balloons and birthday cake to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first clerical and technical workers’ strike at Yale. But they will also be bringing major new grievances against the University, as Yale’s unions — Local 34 and Local 35 — have recently found themselves increasingly at odds with University administrators.
After 10 years of unprecedented cooperation between labor leaders and the Yale administration, which Local 34 President Laurie Kennington described as a time of “peace and prosperity,” the relationship between the two entities has entered a state of renewed contention.
For the last five years, however, the University has consistently trimmed its operating budget — a move that union members say has led to more work being distributed amongst fewer people. Additionally, the relocation of cold food production to the centralized Culinary Support Center this summer and the continued administrative resistance to graduate student unionization have further strained Yale’s relationship with the two unions.
Union leaders said they expect at least 100 members to congregate in front of Sterling today to both celebrate the unions’ history and make a statement to administrators.
“I’m hoping that Yale sits back and realizes that we’re here to stay,” said Local 35 President Bob Proto. “We’ve lived in a combative relationship and we’ve lived in a collaborative relationship, and it is way better to work things out.”
Still, union members also said they hope today’s event will remind administrators in Woodbridge Hall of the benefits of working together.
“I hope they’ll come by and get some birthday cake,” Kennington said.
MOUNTING TENSION
University President Peter Salovey was just beginning his fourth year as a graduate student in Yale’s Psychology department when Local 34 workers first went on strike in late September 1984.
In contrast, nearly all of Salovey’s tenure in the Yale administration has been spent a period of relative peace between Yale and its unions. It is a peace that Salovey said he intends to keep.
“I value the contributions of all of Yale’s staff. I would like to continue building on the good relations between the University, Local 34 and Local 35 over the past few years,” Salovey said earlier this month.
But despite Salovey’s intentions, union members have grown increasingly dissatisfied in recent months. Their frustrations, already building up from the recent half-decade of budget cuts, have grown more acute since the reorganization of Yale Dining this summer.
“In the past few years it seems like we were sort of parting with Yale,” said Local 35 Vice President Frank Douglass, who also serves on the New Haven Board of Alders. “They are taking a turn backwards in time, creating a very hostile relationship with the unions.”
Last week, the unions filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that the University had committed unfair labor practices — the first time the union has made such a move since 2011.
In response to the complaint, University Spokesman Tom Conroy quickly replied that it was without merit, and that the changes to Yale Dining had been thoroughly discussed with employees.
But according to Yale Dining worker Samone Davis, the University has alienated many of its employees by making unilateral decisions about their employment. Although Local 35’s 2012 contract prevents the University from firing its members or lowering their wages, several dining hall staff were disappointed in the University for deciding to alter people’s jobs without consultation.
“For some people at Yale who don’t come to the dining room, it’s a business decision,” Stiles and Morse chef Ernest Ber said about the CSC. “On paper, the numbers have to add up. But for us, its more than numbers.”
A UNITED FRONT
Though the organizational changes in Yale Dining only impact Local 35 jobs, the closely aligned unions have taken the change as an affront to both groups.
“A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us,” said Maureen Jones, a vice president and founder of Local 34. Proto said he hopes the administration recognizes that neither of the two unions will “look from a distance” at the problems impacting the other.
Kennington said she feels that the dining hall changes, while disrespecting Local 35, also are a threat to the white- and pink-collar unions on campus. She added that “the way the University treats Local 35 is the way they treat us.”
Union leaders interviewed yesterday made no mention of striking, but they pointed out the collective manpower of Local 35, Local 35 and the Graduate Employees and Students Organization, the graduate student union that is not currently recognized by the University. Though the administration currently disagrees with GESO’s argument that graduate students are employees of Yale, the group recently petitioned for recognition with over 1,000 graduate students signing their names in support.
Currently, there are 4,813 members of Local 34 and Local 35 working at Yale — nearly the size of the University’s undergraduate population.
“The University in the past has underestimated our commitment to each other because they were banking on how different we are,” Proto said. “That didn’t pan out well for them.”
Proto added that “the jury is still out” on whether or not Salovey has made enough of an effort to engage with the unions.
Still, Proto said there is still room for a compromise.
“In his short time as president there’s been a couple of bumps in the road,” said Proto. “But we still are hopeful that the senior administration, along with Peter Salovey, can figure out a way to interact with us as we’ve done in the past to problem-solve.”
University Vice President for New Haven and State Affairs Bruce Alexander ’65 said he felt a turning point for the relationship between Yale and its unions came in 2006, when he sat down with Proto and agreed to “turn over a new leaf” for the benefit of all individuals involved in labor matters at Yale.
While employees have expressed frustrations about the current tension with administrators, many also recognized that Yale remains among the best places for local residents to work.
“The wages the union negotiates for us are much higher,” Ber said. “For me to find the same benefit package on the street would be very hard.”
Local 34 and Local 35 are both part of the Federation of University Employees, a coalition of labor unions in New Haven that represents thousands of workers at Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital.
After a long battle with Yale’s administration, some New Haven residents are still questioning the University’s use of pesticides, which they said have infiltrated surrounding neighborhoods.
Laura Cahn, who lives on Cleveland Avenue bordering Yale’s athletic fields, has been leading efforts against the University’s pesticide use for several years. Cahn said that in the past Yale has sprayed athletic fields, residential college sidewalks, city sidewalks and tree beds with pesticides. This year she noticed pesticides were being sprayed on either side of Central Avenue and that the workers were not wearing any protective gear. Cahn and other neighbors are concerned that these chemicals are jeopardizing local water and posing public health threats to neighbors, workers and students.
“I’ve smelled that smell before,” Cahn said about the pesticides which she said were sprayed this past August.
The University responded that Yale’s actions are legal. University Spokesman Tom Conroy said that Yale only uses approved products and methods and that there have been no violations of environmental regulations.
Even if the University is using approved amounts of pesticides, small mistakes in their application could lead to problems for the environment, said Joel Bader, the national coordinator for Aquatic Animal Health.
“While the science shown to the public says that the use of proper amounts of pesticides are not harmful and produce the desired results, every year there is improper application,” Bader said.
Moreover post-application rain frequently flushes pesticides into the watershed, impacting wildlife and threatening public health, Bader added.
Bader said more science is needed both to better understand the effects of chemicals on public health and the surrounding ecosystems and to explore alternative, less risky methods of maintaining lawns and fields.
Jeanne Dubino, Cahn’s neighbor was less critical of Yale. She said Yale has responded to her concerns by using fewer pesticides and informing neighbors of which pesticides it uses. Yet Dubino said she is still concerned that pesticides, though considered safe now, will have unforeseen consequences.
Dubino said she would ultimately like to see Yale stop using pesticides all together.
As one of the world’s leading universities, Dubino said Yale should ban pesticides in order to be a role model in environmental policy.
In the meantime, Cahn said she would like Yale to inform neighbors before they apply pesticides and to post pesticide flags on each gate in the neighborhood.
Fields in Branford and Cheshire have already banned pesticides, said Jerry Silbert, the head of the Watershed Partnership and consultant in the conversion of Branford and Cheshire.
Though in the beginning pesticide-free field maintenance is more expensive than using such chemicals, the cost is offset in the end, Silbert said. He explained that while pesticide-free methods require more grass seeds, that cost is offset because the grass does not need to be mowed as often.
“Many people used to pesticides don’t want to switch [but] if people are motivated to do it correctly … you can get very few weeds without pesticides.”
As of now the EPA does not mandate the companies disclose the inert ingredients in their products unless they are considered “hazardous”.
