* Yale Tse-tung : Bux et Veritas in Tiananmen Square

>
































Yale Tse-tung : ACADEMIC SELL-OUT OR BUY-OUT ?






Tse-ung, the last name of a famous Chinese leader, literally means " to beneficense the East."

Well, that may very well be what Yale thinks it's doing with its Yale/China campus and courses.


But listen up: Yale may be dancing with the very devil Google just dumped at the Junior Prom.

How can Academic Freedom exist in Yale courses in China if those same courses' students cannot use modern search engines to address the Tiananmen Square uprising?


That would be like Yale academic courses existing in Ohio whose students could not use Google to address the Kent State killings.

(That ALMOST happened before Google existed: the Ohio state legislature threatened to shut Kent State University permanently if there was any more student unrest there after the May 4, 1970 murders of four Kent State students by Ohio National Guardsmen who broke up a peaceful demonstration protected as freedom of expression by the First Amendment .)

What kind of Yale professors are going to agree to teach under such constraints and to give assignments which must avoid using the Google search engine since Google refuses to purge Tiananmen Square as a topic from its search repertoire?

Yale is heading down a dubious path here. And dare I say it may be more for money than for truth?

Bux et Veritas

Beneficense the Blue.

.




ITS delays switch to Gmail
By David Tidmarsh
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The changeover to Google as Yale’s e-mail provider has been put on hold.
Information Technology Services has decided to postpone the University’s move from the Horde Webmail service to Google Apps for Education, a suite of communication and collaboration tools for universities, pending a University-wide review process to seek input from faculty and students. After a series of meetings with faculty and administrators in February, ITS officials decided to put the move on hold, Deputy Provost for Science and Technology Steven Girvin said.
“There were enough concerns expressed by...

#1 By Anon. 3:29a.m. on March 30, 2010

Horde is an embarrassment. It is far older and less functional that email systems at other universities, proof that it's not just the architecture at Yale that looks medieval. I don't know who on the faculty raised these objections, but it makes me think they should stick to research and teaching and stay away from IT policy.

#2 By EH 3:59a.m. on March 30, 2010

Debate is a nicety and is generally good in these types of things, but this is a simple decision that many universities like Brown have already wisely made. Let's not be stupid: maintaing Horde over Gmail costs Yale more for worse service.

All three listed reasons are stupid:

1) problems with “cloud computing" -- everything is moving to the cloud, even bank databases and financial institutions. It is cheaper due to economies of scale and it is more effective and reliable because of 24/7 effective support.
2) technological risks and downsides--the security risks are not nothing, but I'd rather entrust my information to Google's web security team than Yale's. Plus, Google has a business to keep: they're not going to sell of my information or let it leak.
3) and ideological issues--like what? Conservatives like privatization/outsourcing and liberals like change/progress. Both camps should be on board.

This is silly. Get rid of Horde.... NOW! I don't have 10 minutes to have my web email access load each time.

#3 By Censorship/Scholarship 5:09a.m. on March 30, 2010

The postponement of the word "Chinese" in this article until the final two sentences screams volumes here.

Sensitivity or self-censorship?

Yale's involvement with a country which obstructs academic freedom needs front and center analysis by a journal with as distinguished a record for courageous reporting as the YDN has had over the century plus of its own history.

Google may be telling Yale what Yale already knows but is too financially involved to admit:

Censorship and Scholarship do not a marriage make.

Paul Keane, M.Div.'80
M.A., M.Ed.

The Anti-Yale

#4 By Randy 8:39a.m. on March 30, 2010

The private university that I work for switched to Google Apps for Education last summer. The transition was relatively painless for our users as they had planned well in advance.

Before the change, Google assured us regarding the same concerns as Yale. Google Apps for Education is free, and the service is certainly better than they have now with Horde.

#5 By Ha 8:50a.m. on March 30, 2010

More concern/debate about an email program than we have seen in healthcare...

#6 By 2011 9:58a.m. on March 30, 2010

Horde is ancient technology, expensive to maintain, and difficult to use. But naturally, instead of making progress and creating positive change, Yale is confounded by a bunch of academics, upset that they had no input in a decision that they are not qualified to mediate. Other schools have used Gmail for years, and the supposedly evil Google doesn't seem to have stolen their data and used it for nefarious purposes--any suggestions to the contrary should correctly be labeled conspiracy theories.


#7 By Wha? 10:13a.m. on March 30, 2010

I don't see this as a problem for students. Everyone should already have their own gmail account, which by the way would still exist years after they graduate. And if the yale system had any kind of pop3 service, gmail could easily be configured to automatically check the yale account and even send back using the yale email address. Don't wait for the tech dinosaurs to catch up.

#8 By Jeremy 10:24a.m. on March 30, 2010

I work at a college that recently switched over to Gmail. I've got to say it was a complete success. Its a much easier system to use then any of the older programs.

#9 By otakucode 10:34a.m. on March 30, 2010

For those confused about the concerns, keep in mind that Google is presently the largest censor in the world. They also store email information unencrypted so that they can mine it for information. They frequently scan through the emails of everyone who uses gmail to determine the best advertisements to show those people. They also keep track of every single usage of the system. If Yale switches to using Google, they are handing their students over to Google and saying that Google has complete access to all of their personal data for whatever use Google ever dreams up. You might trust Google today, but in 15 years are you SURE that no executive will come to power in Google that, for instance, is great friends with the government of Iran and shares all email logs with them? Are you SURE that in the coming decades, Googles policy of bending over for any government that promises they can make a few bucks operating in their country if they just cooperate won't make something you said once upon a time look like a 'threat'?

#10 By Gomba 10:34a.m. on March 30, 2010

More liberal drivel.


#11 By Jennifer 10:38a.m. on March 30, 2010

Hello Google, goodbye privacy. Our e-mails will follow us for the rest of our lives.

#12 By DWhite04 10:42a.m. on March 30, 2010

I'm glad that Google's carbon footprint factored into this decision. Ideally, Yale will lead the effort of moving humanity back to a time when we were carbon neutral. Of course, every life-sustaining activity leaves an environmental impact. But the earth would be better off without us.

#13 By @#9 11:29a.m. on March 30, 2010

"But in 15 years are you SURE that no executive will come to power in Google that, for instance, is great friends with the government of Iran and shares all email logs with them?" YES. I am sure; you are ridiculous (and they would be tried for treason then).

"They frequently scan through the emails of everyone who uses gmail to determine the best advertisements to show those people." The academic version does NOT have advertisements.


#14 By Paranoia 11:31a.m. on March 30, 2010

Yes, yes... having Google own plaintext e-mails is a security risk if Google wishes to expose my private e-mail to my mom and, in doing so, risk losing their entire business. But if we're going to invent unlikely security scenarios, people do realize that using unencrypted e-mails at Yale means that IT people here could do the same? Ohmygod, what if in fifteen years, President Levin wants a Yale-in-Iran program, and delivers all of my e-mails to whoever is in charge there?!

Also, in terms of security, there's a risk assessment - Yale is a far easier target than Google, but Google is of bigger value. So which of the two is more likely to be compromised? I'm not sure.

In the end, if you're not encrypting your e-mails (and possibly using a one-time pad for access), I'd bet you're already placing a substantial benefit to your ease of use over a very minor security threat. This is more of the same.

#15 By JimBob Databender 12:01p.m. on March 30, 2010

remember the big deal when they announced this awhile back.. apparently the ducks were not lined up sufficently and the trouble makers came out of the woodwork to put a stop to this...

#16 By SjJr 12:09p.m. on March 30, 2010

Brilliant and thoughtful analysis by DWhite04, here. The cost of a Gmail account? Free. Seeing liberal use technology to complain about the evils of technology? Priceless.

#17 By Yale 08 12:17p.m. on March 30, 2010

After decades of enduring situations like this, you would think ITS would have realized that the mantra is "under promise, over deliver" ... not the other way around. :-)

#18 By ITSguy 12:28p.m. on March 30, 2010

It's funny that YDN is calling it an "ITS delay..." when in reality, the decision was NEVER made to begin with. This whole story started with a rumor that came from a group that is not as tightly knit with ITS as they think they are. In reality, ITS is evaluating Google and Microsoft email as a solution to our current student systems. A decision should be made later this year, but there is NOTHING definite yet. Also, faculty are expressing concerns as noted in the story, and they will be a factor in the decision.

#19 By nupet 12:29p.m. on March 30, 2010

Glad to see an acknowledgment that concern about Google's carbon footprint is "ideological", not scientific.

#20 By @DWhite04 12:34p.m. on March 30, 2010

I agree with DWhite04, who judging by the name doesn't have to deal with the behemoth that is Horde. Horde may be bad, but it's not nearly as bad as tacitly supporting Google's carbon footprint.

...
#21 By Greg Barton 12:54p.m. on March 30, 2010

If they were smart, they'd get out now while the getting is good. Google obviously cannot be trusted to do the right thing ever. Getting in bed with these morons is about as blind as it gets!

#22 By tin foil hat w/antenna 12:57p.m. on March 30, 2010

DONOT RESIST YALE. Just submit to Google. Resisting is pointless. Google is controlling your transmisions. Donot attempt to adjust the verticle. Google will own the world soon so just relax and allow them to infect your campus.

#23 By Martin 1:08p.m. on March 30, 2010

Mike Fischer's reported remarks are on target. Google has a great user experience, but you just don't know what's going to happen with your data. Of course, you don't know what Yale's going to do with your data either, but at least users have some leverage here. The smart thing to do is to download all your mail to your personal machine and keep it off the server and away from all those prying eyes and legal beagles.

The remark about carbon footprint is strange. Does anyone think Yale's footprint per email user is less than Google's?

#24 By yale 09 1:10p.m. on March 30, 2010

Gmail threads. Threading is not for everyone. Google is arrogant enough to not even give users the option of toggling off threading, even though its clear that there are many people out there who dislike this feature.

Does this mean that all yale mail will be threaded?

#25 By Yalie81 1:15p.m. on March 30, 2010

This is just how we roll at http://www.indoctrinate-u.com/

#26 By @ Yale 08 1:29p.m. on March 30, 2010

They do under-promise, but they also manage to consistently under-deliver. Consistency is good, right?

#27 By kuni lemmel 1:31p.m. on March 30, 2010

Why anyone would use an email client is beyond me. Every last bit of your email is stored and saved, like it or not; and at college it's all connected to your name, numbers (ss, license, school, credit cards), and your family. If you think that's for your benefit, youse a good lil democrat. If you think GOOG doesn't do it (place your own scathing remark about stupidity here).

#28 By joe thompson 2:26p.m. on March 30, 2010

if you have a private email that you don't want google to know about you can use another email service.

#29 By ofc2logic 2:42p.m. on March 30, 2010

Gmail and Google's apps are low-end, inexpensive alternatives to real software. The idea of Gmail pretending to be some kind of enterprise collaboration solution is hilarious to me.

#30 By Sean 2:48p.m. on March 30, 2010

From a business/financial point of view, going "free and hosted" certainly makes the most sense.
But you have to wonder: no company, including Google, can do something for free. They're making money off of this deal somehow, yet won't tell you how.
If something's too good to be true, it generally is.
What's more, the "cloud" is not a fait-accompli. Having all your data in a third-party location poses a huge security and business continuity risk. And given that Google won't tell you where your data is going to be is pretty crazy.
Limiting yourself to Google's cloud and apps also severely restricts your business processes. Want to streamline a process that Google can't accomodate? Tough luck. You could have developed something locally had you hosted your own apps, but since you're in the cloud you have to do everything the Google way.
But then again, I'm sure Google is confident they know how to do your job better than you do anyway.
Finally, Google had to give their code over to the Chinese in order to operate there. Once I heard that, Google has never seen me log into anything that they run.

#31 By oracle2world 2:54p.m. on March 30, 2010

You can't teach an old dog new tricks (or a new email system).
Anyone else here have a better explanation?

* My Grandmother, the Ghetto and Yale: 260 - 360 State Street

The 1940's New Haven Green with Yale on the right, the ghetto on the left and the harbor in the background.









360 State Street, 2010



















Alice Nugent Ward, age 28




















Age 58,
in her
Rebekah gown,
New Haven




















Age 88 ,
with her daughter,
in Chevy Chase.
















Yale and the New Haven Green













The drug store
corner entrance
below my
grandmother's
ghetto
apartment at
Elm and State Streets
(264 State Street)



MY GRANDMOTHER


My Grandmother never drove a car and never smoked a cigarette. She never owned a checkbook and never borrowed money.

My Grandmother was poor.

My Grandmother was proud.

She lived in a third-floor walk-up with no hot water, two blocks from the palaces of Yale University at Elm and State Streets, clearly a ghetto apartment. Today, one block away at 360 State Street, a luxury apartment building sits, thirty stories high.

Its apartments rent for nearly $2000 a month. My Grandmother paid $40.00 a month (plus utilities) for her three-room walk-up. It had no storm windows: Not warm in the winter.

My Grandmother was a Lady, with a capital L.

She always carried a pocketbook.

She paid all her bills on time, in person, having walked to her destination in that wonderful walking city, New Haven: the Telephone Company; The Electric Company; The Water Company; The Edward Malley Company.

She always wore white gloves and a hat on such business.

She always paid her bills in cash, concealed in an envelope for politeness, handed to a clerk with her hand extended in her inevitable white gloves which reached four inches above the wrist.

I only heard my Grandmother swear once ("Damn!") in my entire life. Most of the time her greatest exaperation was expressed by "Fiddlesticks" or "Fiddledeedee."

Once or twice a year my Grandmother would drink a Rob Roy or a Manhattan, at Christmas or Thanksgiving.

She never drank alone.

She refused to take Welfare even though she was eligible for it. She belonged to the Methodist Church on the New Haven Green and tithed herself from her modest earnings.

She worked at the New Haven Clock Company until she was 65, arriving and departing by trolley or bus.

When she retired, she lived on $60.00 a month Social Security and
$20.00 a week she made as an afternoon receptionist for the Doctors' Building at what is now the location of the Shubert Theatre.

When her landlord raised the rent in 1958 to $50.00 a month she had to move to an efficiency apartment at 100 Howe Street for $38.00 a month.

She retired again at age 72 and came to live with us in Mt. Carmel.

After a year there she moved to live with her other daughter (my mother's widowed sister) in a three-room apartment in Chevy Chase Maryland, where she died at 89, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Half a Century on:

260 - 360 State Street










Few units filled at 360 State
By Amir Sharif
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Looking down Chapel Street, it’s difficult to miss the 34-story tower soaring above its neighboring five-story red bricks. Though the building, named after its address at 360 State St., may appear plain and unassuming, it sticks out like a cowlick in both its size and its long list of superlatives.
Last week, the building joined the ranks of the nation’s most environmentally friendly developments, becoming the third building in Connecticut to be certified LEED Platinum. The $180 million project — designed and developed by Connecticut-based Becker+Becker, co-founded by Bruce Becker ARC...

#1 By Not my style 4:42a.m. on March 30, 2010

I have an apartment in a wonderful residential nab close to downtown and pay a LOT less. IMO, the developers should try to appeal to the sort of people who have already shown interest - consultants and pied-a-terre dwellers. But for people that live in New Haven, I think there's a much smaller market for that kind of apartment.


#2 By State and Elm 5:34a.m. on March 30, 2010


360 State Street is within a few doorways of my grandmother's third floor walk-up ghetto apartment at Elm and State Streets, a walk-up without electricity mind you (now a vacant lot) which she lived in till the age of 70 in 1960. I believe her rent was $40.00 (that's forty) a month and she had to move when they raised it to $50.00, a price she could not afford on $60.00 a month Social Security and a half-time job as a receptionist at the Medical Building (now the Shubert Theater)for $20 a week.

Paul Keane
The Anti-Yale

#3 By Not THAT poor ! 5:57a.m. on March 30, 2010

CORRECTION: My grandmother's State and Elm Street third-floor walk-up was not without "electricity" in 1960, it was without "hot water". We weren't THAT poor---but close.

PK
The Anti-Yale

#4 By Keep the lux in New Haven... 10:41a.m. on March 30, 2010

Let's be honest... I can't think of a single place in New Haven I really WANT to live in. The Taft is a dump, the Eli not much better, and the condo I'm renting on Chapel is far from perfect. The rent at 360 State may be high, but you get what you pay for. Finally, those who can afford it will have a nice little spot to hang their hat.

#5 By y11 12:09p.m. on March 30, 2010

Wow, this is an enormous surprise.

#6 By The Count 4:08p.m. on March 30, 2010

I'm not sure if "Y11" is showing sarcasm or genuine surprise. As for myself, it's just another reason the "can't do" mentality permeates New Haven and the Southern Connecticut region.

#7 By give it some time 4:19p.m. on March 30, 2010

If this building rents out, it will signal an important turning point for New Haven, into an attractive destination that people want to live and visit. All of us at Yale have an interest in reaching that turning point.

* Kidding Ourselves Endlessly

Bullets Trump Privilege











Fatal shooting spree continues
By Colin Ross
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News

Published Tuesday, March 23, 2010

With multiple gunshot wounds in his left arm and wrist, New Haven resident Jayson Roman, 27, ran three blocks from Edgewood Avenue to St. Raphael’s Hospital on Chapel Street last Saturday. After reaching the hospital just before 4 a.m., he told the staff his friend had also been shot and was in a nearby car, unable to move.
When the New Haven police found the car, a beige Lexus crashed into a fence four blocks down Edgewood Avenue from Pierson College, Roman’s friend, Shawn Alexander, 33,was slumped in the driver’s seat, the engine still running. He was dead from multiple gunshot...

#1 By YC12 5:03a.m. on March 23, 2010

Well this is a bit too close for comfort. Should have gone to Princeton.

#2 By alum interviewer 12:12p.m. on March 23, 2010

Not the kind of headlines we like to see as top students are about to decide which college to attend from among those which have admitted them.

Lets hope the new chief clamps down hard during Bulldog Days

#3 By Tanner 5:13p.m. on March 23, 2010

This will build character for all the future Washington Social Engineers, your not gonna get that kinda education in Princeton, Ithica or Hanover. And face it Brown is on the outskirts and Cambridge ain't Boston. Only Yale and Columbia "inner" city schools.

#4 By Amazing 9:07p.m. on March 23, 2010

Anybody care about the victims or their families? I'm sure this sucks even more for them than it does for Yale's recruiting...

#5 By Heartless Ivy 10:43p.m. on March 23, 2010

Didn't you realize nothing is as important as Yale and the elite beings who dwell within it's ivory towers?

#6 By alum DC 5:23p.m. on March 24, 2010

Tanner -

Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown are all in locations that are basically glorified gated subdivisions for the rich. You couldn't get more boring if you tried. If you want to go to a college that replicates the social experience of Winnetka or Palos Verdes Estates, go to one of these.

By contrast, New Haven is one of the only places left in the United States, that has a top university but is still a place where people of different social classes talk to and see one another.

In terms of shootings, keep them in perspective. These are largely interpersonal disputes and unlikely to impact a Yale student or a resident of New Haven who is not involved in drug or illegal activity.

A student at a place like Yale, Berkeley or Chicago (among the only other elite colleges still located within real communities) is at least 100 times more likely to be killed in a car crash.


#7 By To #6 alum DC 4:04p.m. on March 25, 2010

Surely you are joking.

Columbia, Harvard and Brown located in "gated subdivisions for the rich"?

Here are the cities you mention, ranked by the 2005 violent crime rate on the FBI 1-10 scale:

New Haven (124,791) 8
Providence (173,618) 7
Chicago (2,836,658) 7
Boston (559,054) 7
New York (8,274,537) 6
Berkeley (100,744) 6
Cambridge (100,135) 5

http://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=50606000&city2=50952000


#8 By EMTINESS 11:31 p.m. on March 29, 2010

A graduate student at Dartmouth decapitated his friend a few years ago.

Ithaca has had three suicides in the last two months at Cornell, two off the same gorge's bridges, one day apart.

It is AMERICA and the EMPTINESS of competition that is the problem.

PK

* No Student Union at Yale? Chapel Street !

The Airport-Terminal
sized Kent State
University
Student Union Building
built after
the 1970 Killings.



















New Haven
(The Walking City):
Chapel Street is
Yale's Student Union












Good, clean fun
on Old Campus
Chaplain’s Office
hosts safe space

By Sam Greenberg
Staff Reporter

The Yale Daily News

Published Monday, March 29, 2010

Friday and Saturday nights on Old Campus just got a little more wholesome.
With the launch of a new event called Global Grounds, the Chaplain’s Office is working to create an opportunity every Friday and Saturday night for students to hang out and meet new people in a social environment that is not focused on drinking. The Office tried out the new program this past Friday and Saturday, setting up the Dwight Hall common room with tables, art supplies, board games, coffee and snacks. While organizers said the weekend’s test run was successful, they added that they hope to see students...

#1 By Omission or Commission? 5:15a.m. on March 29, 2010

What an excellent idea.

It never occurred to me until this moment (despite a lifetime in and around and back and forth and to and from Yale), that YALE DOES NOT HAVE A STUDENT UNION.

What an interesting omission, and omisssion (or commission) it must be since Yale is not oblivious to what's going on at other schools.

After the Kent State killings in 1970 that university built a new Student Union (replacing the 1950's snack-bar version) the size of a modern airport terminal!

PK

#2 By Yale 08 8:54a.m. on March 29, 2010

Isn't Sharon Kugler a Catholic?

The Catholic Sun

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

~Hillaire Belloc

#3 By Yale mom 11:19a.m. on March 29, 2010

BRAVO and thank you!! Hopefully the masters of the residence colleges are talking this up to students. What about initiating a competition to see which college can muster the highest attendance percentage?

#4 By yalemom 11:20a.m. on March 29, 2010

This is the BEST idea I have seen yet!

Thank you Chaplain’s Office, you might actually be saving lives and building wholesome relationships.

#5 By ES10 11:54a.m. on March 29, 2010

Really excited for this. They have cookies and baklava! and an open-mic! and scrabble!

#6 By TC 00 2:32p.m. on March 29, 2010

Checkers, art supplies and snacks? REALLY? I am SHOCKED that students aren't falling all over themselves to revert to their 12-year old selves instead of creating (and erasing!) memories at crazy parties. Certainly when I think of my Bright College Years, I look back on all the times I played Chutes & Ladders while stone cold sober.

#7 By Goldie '08 3:40p.m. on March 29, 2010

This won't be taken seriously, and it is made in jest, but I believe the point is somewhat valid:

Smoking pot is a fun activity for friends to partake in as an alternative to alcohol!

#8 By Auntie PK 3:49p.m. on March 29, 2010

There has never been a need for a "student union": One's college (PK: a.k.a. a student's more or less permanent dormitory or even alma mater) provides endless variations on the theme, limited only by the energy and imagination of its residents. Any student (or graduate) of Yale College knows that the common room, the dining hall, the buttery (PK: a "buttery" is where Yalies go for camaraderie, food, and fun), etc., fill (and more) the purpose of a "student union."

This is not to criticize Old Campus (PK: Old Campus is where a Yalie lives during freshman year before progressing to his or her "college"), efforts by the Chaplain's Office to provide some centralized entertainment are... fine (although they will be made superfluous should Levin get his way and dismantle the Old Campus system, but that initiative is outside the scope of this comment).

The Chaplain's effort does, perhaps, reflect poorly on freshman, as they seem to need some external motivator to "withstand" the evils and allures of drugs, drinks, & sex (well, drugs & drinks, anyway) that clearly pervade the campus mind (well, the Chaplain's, anyway).

That said: I myself *love* cookies and Scrabble(tm)!

[Note to future English teachers: the phrase "1950's snack bar" should be correctly written "1950s snack bar" or even "1950s' snack bar," but let us not stand on peder..., er, pedantry or points...]

#9 By Yale 09 4:00p.m. on March 29, 2010

Great idea. Wish something like this had come sooner

#10 By Y12 5:37p.m. on March 29, 2010

Great! If people go to that, I WILL get into a secret society.

Certainly not the chess champion.



#11 By Skeine 7:44p.m. on March 29, 2010

This is a great initiative by the Chaplain's Office. Even if the Yale administration turns a blind eye to alcohol use (and abuse) by freshmen, it doesn't mean that every freshman chooses to engage in this kind of illegal behavior. Moreover, because drinking culture is so pervasive, it can be difficult to find people who want to have fun without alcohol. It's absurd that at Yale, a school that celebrates the diversity of opinions, any student should feel pressure to drink in order 'truly' experience his or her 'Bright College Years.'


#12 By From Ralph Waldo Emerson's Hobgobblin and PK 8:00p.m. on March 29, 2010

Taken from UsingEnglish.com

English Language Poll

Poll: Do you use an apostrophe in plural dates?

1970's
1970s




Votes: 1279
Comments: 12
Added: September 2003


Caleb Talati - 29th May 2007 19:57
In the "Penguin Guide to Punctuation"(1997), I read that the apostrophe is not needed for forming the dates of plurals in British English. However, according to the author, it is needed in American English. I find it easy writing both "1970s" and "1970's".



#13 By Walking City: Yale's Student Union 12:26a.m. on March 30, 2010

New Haven is a good, old-fashioned "walking city" and Chapel Street is Yale's Student Union.

PK

#14 By Auntie PK 1:52a.m. on March 30, 2010

I unsurprised that you are unaware what Yale recommends:
http://www.yale.edu/bass/1tools.html#StyleManual

Big boys play with the MLA (you can look that up, can't you?) and the Chicago Manual of Style...

#15 By Emma Woodhouse 10:38a.m. on March 30, 2010

At least Yale is acknowledging that the drinking in Old Campus is out of control. But will chess and cookies without music draw the students who are apt to drink? Haven't experienced it, but the chaplain's effort sounds a bit too tame. In spite of the college system, a student union with bowling, pool, snack bars etc. would be a plus at Yale.

#16 By Yale 11 2:28p.m. on March 30, 2010

Anyone who mentions a Student Union is clueless about the social greatness of Yale.

The residential colleges are tremendously safe and students LOVE the communities in those walls.

Yale boasts the best undergraduate experience and some of the happiest students because of this system.

A student union is a relic from another era of education. We don't have any need for something like that.



#17 By Fortress Mentality 133 on March 30, 2010

The residential colleges, whatever their social benefit (or "social greatness") to the insiders, are an architectural snub to the outsiders (townies), facing INWARD as they do with their gothic buttoxes extended outward, protected by modern portcullises, fortresses of privilege, excluding the civilians on the sidewalks
from even the illusion of participation in the Yale experience.

The elitist smugness of this architecture seems to escape the University, which throws a few "social outreach" scraps to the townspeople now and then ( a soup kitchen here; a concert there ) and has even decided to replicate the model in its two new Gothic Palace colleges, contiguous with the section of New Haven off Prospect Street which oozes poverty.

Crime creeps ever closer to the University year by year, and dumfounded, the University is clueless as to why the impoverished who live on its borders might possibly be angry, envious and driven.

My, my, my.


This fortress mentality speaks loud and clear in all that Yale represents in New Haven.

Paul Keane
The Anti-Yale

* Can't think of a title (Fill in your own: _____________)

Shaffer: Beauty, irony, Gaga
On Truth and Lies
By Matthew Shaffer
Staff Columnist
The Yale Daily News
Published Wednesday, March 24, 2010

“The genius of Gaga” was a good start, but Kathryn Olivarius ’11 doesn’t go far enough. She doesn’t appreciate Gaga like I do.
Gaga changed my life. Before her, I shunned all pop music — any song written after World War I. But Gaga’s music taught me to stop worrying and love modernity. Now I tolerate young people, blue jeans, even dance parties.
Pop culture is awful. Contemporary musical theater ranks among the greatest monstrosities of human history, and persuades me that America’s decline is nigh. People pay hundreds of dollars to hear one-dimensional protagonists screech...

#1 By '10 11:09a.m. on March 24, 2010

Forget Lady Gaga. There is only Janelle Monae.

#2 By SY '11 3:26p.m. on March 24, 2010

Janelle Monae ftw!

#3 By '09 3:58p.m. on March 24, 2010

Seconded. She is amazing.

#4 By '09 3:58p.m. on March 24, 2010

Janelle Monae, I mean

#5 By Fan 6:31p.m. on March 24, 2010

Thank you for sharing your opinion on Gaga. But honestly you see no similarities between Madonna of the 80's and Gaga today ? It is all the same crap that Hollywood has made (sex drugs and R&R).

#6 By Fan 7:03p.m. on March 24, 2010

she also used many of Micheal Jackson's Dance moves !

#7 By '14 7:58p.m. on March 24, 2010

You rock. Your columns rock. Every week. You're great.

#8 By saybrook997 8:35p.m. on March 24, 2010

I don't believe this article is about Lady Gaga, any more than about health care or cap and trade.

This is none of my business, and I have enough of my own stuff, but YDN op-eds are not WSJ types. They scream out what's going on in his or her big, little mind, heart, and soul?

What happened over spring break? Maybe you just are having Nietzsche nihilist fun or a senior thesis crisis or a third-wave "young woman" problem (other than Lady Gaga).

You write: "how to survive our time. In a godless world without beauty, truth or goodness, there is no significance to life, words have no meaning and we’ll all soon be dead. The only path is irony — speaking with a smile because every word is a lie, going through an empty world and finding amusement in performance. We know God is dead and so will we be — but it doesn’t get us down. Because we have Gaga....the only source of consolation in an mad, ugly world. We could use more beauty....But we’re a lost generation...."

Are you OK? We're all in this generation. Jesus Christ!(and I don't often write or say those words in this godless, modern pagan, Nietzsche, empty, ugly, mad, lost world.)

If soul crisis, try Pascal. If soul mate crisis, women are hell on men, and they think it's always the other way. Especially after 30 years when women have tried more change than men have been allowed in the past 3,000 years. Still, not this generation's women's doings, so don't fly to Argentina.

If all this really was irony, never mind. As my great aunt would say, no need to get my bowels in an uproar and kidneys in a downpour, merely over a soulless, mad world in crisis, except for Gaga. Or just let me laugh that you almost let your Nietzsche get out of control.



#9 By '12 10:08p.m. on March 24, 2010

Shaffer's a stud.

#10 By DC 11:12p.m. on March 24, 2010

more interesting than the articles themselves is the arch-conservative's quite evident fascination with hipsters and gaga...

#11 By '10 12:15a.m. on March 25, 2010

This is the best op-ed ever.

#12 By @#8 12:29a.m. on March 25, 2010

i think this is more of a semi-ironic exploration of Gaga's relation to meaningless/soulless postmodernity than necessarily an endorsement of that view.

#13 By Belief Systems 12:35a.m. on March 25, 2010

It takes more courage to behave nobly in a godless world than it does in a world where nobility is rewarded by an invisible score-keeper in the sky.

Nietzsche was nuts. And now he's dead, like his god.

("God is dead; and, Mary is his mother".)

Pascal said, "All of the troubles of mankind are caused by man's inability to sit quietly in his room."

Hedonism, materialism, nihilism and exhilarationism are the luxuries of the young and healthy.

Lady Gaga will be fat and wrinkled in the twinkling of an eye; or a living mummy like Joan Rivers, or Madonna.

What do you want to live FOR?

Or do you simply want to wake up every day and follow your lusts like a dog following scents?

PK

BTW Nihilism is a form of meaning--it is a belief-system.

#14 By @saybrook997 1:22a.m. on March 25, 2010

I assure you that Mr. Shaffer is not having "woman problems." He is a very happy and lucky man.

#15 By y'10 10:26p.m. on March 25, 2010

Matt, you've gone all Richard Rorty on us! I like it.

* Bux et Veritas

Univ. to reconsider controversial investment


By Vivian Yee and Nora Caplan-Bricker
Staff Reporter, Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility may reevaluate its stance on the University’s investment in HEI Hotels & Resorts in the wake of Brown University president Ruth Simmons’s letter to HEI, in which Simmons expressed concern over allegations that the company violated labor laws.
Almost a year and a half after students at campuses across the country — including Yale’s — began protesting their universities’ investments in the hotel management company, Simmons wrote to HEI CEO Gary Mendell in February, saying Brown may rethink investments in HEI in light of reports that...

#1 By $tudent Activi$m 5:26a.m. on March 23, 2010

Bravo, Brava!
This is true $tudent activi$m. [sic]

PK
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com

#2 By Rudy '73 9:46a.m. on March 23, 2010

Don't forget that the national campus protest campaign against HEI is organized and fueled by the national union, UNITE HERE. http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2008/12/03/news-analysis-union-propels-hei-protests/
HEI's main offense is not agreeing to UNITE's demands for "card-check neutrality", which effectively eliminates secret ballots in union elections.

Universities' and reasonable people's judgment on HEI should be reserved until a verdict on the complaints has been rendered. Did offenses occur and if so were they committed by knucklehead local managers or as a result of a systematic strategy?

#3 By Y12 10:26a.m. on March 23, 2010

Finally a chance that Yale will do the right thing...of course it would not be so bold as to be a leader in ethical investing. I urge everyone, however, to continue to watch this closely--the ACIR has feigned movement many times only to drop things when the spotlight is no longer on.

#4 By Headliner 2:01p.m. on March 23, 2010

Headline is "Univ. to reconsider controversial investment"

The use of the word "university" implies a figure or body with some official capacity, power, and/or authority to perform said reconsideration, with potential for some change in strategy. Think Swensen or Levin, for example.

I did not get that from the article.

#5 By yale2011 5:23p.m. on March 23, 2010

FINALLY, ACIR! I hope the right choice is made.

Good think you are finally covering this, YDN.

Nice work, UOC

#6 By Brown alum 7:16p.m. on March 23, 2010

Brown should look at its own conduct vis-a-vis efforts to organize unions. Presently unionized are staff in Brown libraries, food services, and facilities management, but in other departments staff have been discouraged from (if not bullied about) unionizing.
Simmons is, I think, in damage-control mode after her much-reported resignation from the Goldman Sachs board. That resignation followed a brilliant op-ed column in the Brown Daily Herald that initiated an "emperor-has-no-clothes" phase in Simmons's heretofore under-scrutinized administration. May the scrutiny continue.

#7 By Charles 11:47p.m. on March 23, 2010

While the ACIR has taken a step in the right direction, the question remains as to why Yale must always be second...on a range of policies, we seldom take leadership. Rather we wait until Harvard or Brown or Columbia acts first...

* GRADING : Artificial, Bankrupt, Sadistic System

YCC wants to expand Credit/D/Fail
Science professors skeptical of proposal to open option to distributional requirements
By Greta Stetson
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Wednesday, March 24, 2010

If the Yale College Council has its way, the science gut may be an endangered species.
The YCC is beginning to discuss and gauge student opinion about a possible policy change that would allow students to fulfill their distributional requirements with classes taken Credit/D/Fail. YCC President Jon Wu ’11 said the council is currently in talks with administrators, including Yale College Dean Mary Miller, but the council has not taken any concrete action. If the results of the council’s recent policy survey, distributed by e-mail Monday, demonstrate enough student interest, he said, the...

#1 By '10 6:19a.m. on March 24, 2010

Science professors won't support making things more reasonable, students won't take GPA-killing classes. Seems we've reached an impasse.

For the record, I'm content with History of Life. It's too bad Porn in the Morn lost its Sc though.

#2 By 2010 8:10a.m. on March 24, 2010

A great initiative! I would definitely take a real math course instead of a worthless gut, where I learn nothing AND get frustrated.
#3 By CC 10 12:05p.m. on March 24, 2010
Great...because everyone needs a 3.8.

I think the thing that would happen in reality, if this reform comes to pass, would be people (cocky Poli Sci majors with 3.9 GPAs) taking Porn in the Morn or whatever C/D/Fail, which would be the opposite of what we would be aiming for.

#4 By 2010b 12:07p.m. on March 24, 2010

A better alternative would be to reinstate a core curriculum that would require everyone to take the same difficult science classes...then, people wouldn't need a 3.9 to get a job in banking because people wouldn't be as able to game their schedules in order to get the highest grades possible, without actually taking rigorous classes.

#5 By science2010 2:34p.m. on March 24, 2010

Remind me what's wrong with the current system? Hopefully, the professors don't budge on this issue.

Just keep revoking distribution credits for guts, encourage departments to offer non-major classes that are widely interesting and challenging (i.e., that aren't just the pre-major classes that are overly technical for non-majors).

#6 By Naive 3:00p.m. on March 24, 2010

It would be naive to think that nonscience majors would use this to take difficult classes. They will in reality use this to take easy but tedious classes and do no work. And here's the other thing: do we want nonscience majors to get credit on their transcripts for taking "difficult" science classes when in reality they did nothing and would have gotten a C- in them anyway? Also, totally unfair to science majors to allow humanities majors yet another way to keep their GPA sky high. The whole point of the distribution requirements is to ensure that kids are exposed to different fields. Using C/D/F on these defeats the point - either get rid of the reqs or make kids take them for grades.

#7 By 10 3:03p.m. on March 24, 2010

I think that this initiative unfairly favors students in liberal arts majors. Science majors take humanities classes that are filled with actual History and English majors and are expected to handle it.

#8 By Yale Engineer 4:13p.m. on March 24, 2010

All non-engineers are going to fail engineering classes anyhow.

#9 By Faculty 4:17p.m. on March 24, 2010

We should stop pretending that Yale actually awards real grades. With the current Cr/D/F, most students can opt out of work on most of their courses. And in most departments outside the sciences, most grades are A and A-. We do a lot of work, and students stress a lot, over an outcome that is just meaningless.

Of course, we could go back to real grades...

#10 By 2011 4:44p.m. on March 24, 2010

This is a horrible idea. I doubt that people who are already not interested in the sciences would see this as an opportunity to take more difficult science classes as opposed to slacking off.

#11 By derr 5:02p.m. on March 24, 2010

10-

The offerings of non-science classes are wide and diverse. Plenty of guts from which to choose.

But science offerings are tiny, often with barely coherent professors, with unrealistic expectations for prior knowledge and preparation.

Any clown can show up to a history class without prior study and do well. The material is accessible to anyone with a brain.

I never took high school physics. If I try physics at Yale, I will fail. You can't learn the basics fast enough to catch up. The material is only accessible to those with prior training.

#12 By MC'11 5:29p.m. on March 24, 2010

Thanks everyone for calling out the foolishness of this initiative. I had a lot of comments, but #5,6 & 7 said it all already.

I'm really glad they made all classes open for Cr/D/F. But let's hope this one doesn't happen.

#13 By SY '10 7:17p.m. on March 24, 2010

As a history major, I have to agree with those who think this sort of change would be terrible. There are good, non-gut science classes out there that are accessible to non-science majors. In fact, two of my favorite classes at Yale were science classes - Ornithology (E&EB 272) and Galaxies and Cosmology (ASTR 220 - not a total gut like the 100-level Astro courses, in fact, it even counts toward the Astro major). Most humanities majors are simply not interested in spending any time on a science class - it's not that the non-guts will lower their GPA, so much as that they don't care to put in any effort, so they look for classes in which that is a possibility.
Yale, rather than allowing distributional requirements to be taken CR/D/F, should do what commenter #5 suggested - take away distributional requirements from guts and from SC classes with little science content.

#14 By '12 8:54p.m. on March 24, 2010

Seems to me like the solution is simple: allow CR/D/Fail for distributional requirements in most classes, but certain guts (History of Life, Geometry of Nature) must be taken for a grade if you want distributional credits. Or just have professors who don't want their easy classes to be taken advantage of make CR/D/Fail not an option in their classes.

#15 By Yale '08 8:57p.m. on March 24, 2010

"Any clown can show up to a history class without prior study and do well. The material is accessible to anyone with a brain."

Yeah right. Math is a language. So is English. I know so many students who stick to hard sciences because they can't actually think, argue, and write well in a humanities/non-science class.

And every field, whether physics or english, has a method and process. You will NEVER get that A or A- in an advanced-level class unless you have the analytical training that that field demands.

Don't get all science-superiority complex on us.

#16 By physics major 9:45p.m. on March 24, 2010

@11- There are four intro physics sequences designed for students with all levels of prior preparation. Most of them are also pretty well taught. Maybe if you try one you will be pleasantly surprised.

I think one of the problems with science classes is that, frequently, the most interesting, relevant classes are advanced classes with multiple prereqs (quantum mechanics, for example). The more rigorous intro classes are not so much too difficult as too dull. This is a problem, but allowing students to take these classes Credit/D is not the solution.

#17 By y12 12:00a.m. on March 25, 2010

This is a horrible idea. How do you think this will affect Yale's reputation in the sciences and engineering (which is already far below its peers)?

#18 By '11 1:34a.m. on March 25, 2010

How about offering more writing credits? There are wayyy more science and QR classes to choose from than writing credits...

#19 By Recent Alum 2:01a.m. on March 25, 2010

Credit/D/Fail should not be allowed. What we need instead is to come back to a standard curve (30% A/A-, 50% B+/B/B-, 20% C) that would apply for ALL classes (science and others).

#20 By alternate idea 9:28a.m. on March 25, 2010

I think this idea is a terrible one for reasons stated above. I think what's lacking is not access to higher level science classes, but the equivalent of classes like Astro 160 (a mildly challenging, but maximally interesting Astro class that's NOT OPEN TO SCIENCE MAJORS). There should be classes in the humanities and social sciences that are not open to majors, granting quantitively minded students access to such topics without being forced to deal with the curve.

#21 By Yale '11 11:48a.m. on March 25, 2010

A standard curve is a terrible, terrible idea. What makes you think the top 8-9% of applicants to Yale would show enough variation in performance, relative to the objectives of the course? And in any case, this variation wouldn't be consistent enough across courses to impose an artificial grade distribution. It is perfectly possible, for example, for all students in a language course to perform at an A level and they should get that A. I'm all for professors demanding a lot out of their students and grading them hard, but all an artificial grade curve does is make people work harder on less important things. The difference between an A and a B shouldn't be whether you spent that extra hour memorizing unnecessary details.

That said, YCC's proposal is s terrible idea:

1. Intro science classes are simply too bad. If they are for non-majors, they tend to be frustratingly stupid. If they are pre-major courses, they tend to be too technical and require far more work (read: pointless memorization) than actually does any non-majors any good. (Which is not to say that they're intellectually demanding or difficult. Science people, understand the difference.)

2. The kind of people who are so concerned about their grades that they are not willing to take classes they find interesting (a strange breed of which I have heard much and seen nothing) are not likely to invest enough time in a CR/D class to make it worth it. If we are concerned about intellectual integrity and the quality of this education, this mentality should be fought, not accommodated.

#22 By The Contrarian 12:21p.m. on March 25, 2010

Back in the day of the much-maligned "Gentleman's C", it was not uncommon for someone with a grade of say, 92 in a French course to get a C. With a real curve, I do wonder how well the Science Whiz-Kids would fare.

#23 By Yale 08 1:56p.m. on March 25, 2010

@19 -- right on, grading standards across departments and certainly across disciplines are wildly inconsistent at present

#24 By YC07 2:13a.m. on March 26, 2010
@#15,

Two can play the "I know many people who did this" game. Let's get real here, you can BS your way through a history or English class. I've seen my friends do it over and over again. I was a science major and got somewhat proficient in the "art" of BS myself. On a few occasions, I semi-BS'ed my way on history papers and got A & A- the way I cannot BS a science test and pull off an A or A-. You simply can't do that for math/science classes, even the introductory ones. I'd love to see someone BS their way to an A in Math 120, but all i had seen was a ton of suffering.

Surely, you are right that there are math/science majors who can't write a coherent paragraph, but you can be damned sure that these "science nerds" earned their A and A-, from the intro classes up to the advanced ones. The same can't be said for quite a bit of group I & II kids.

#25 By A Bankrupt, Sadistic System 3:52p.m. on March 26, 2010

Does anyone who gets a divorce ever say "I FAILED marriage?" Or does anyone who gets cancer ever say "I FAILED health"?

Why do we mindlessly accept this artificial construct called "Fail" which exists only in academia and does untold damage the the psyches of millions of children all over the world? It is almost sadistic.

It should be replaced with NC for "No Credit".

Even "bankruptcy" isn't a "fail". Quite the opposite these days with Chapter Nine.

There is no failure in the "real world", (except perhaps "failure to thrive") so let's abandon "Fail" as a descriptor in the artificial world of academia.

PK
The Anti-Yale

* Where is the Macintosh Money?

The Macintosh Chalice, which I donated to Yale Law School (not the Divinity School) in 2008





















New Haven artist Clarence Brodeur, editor of the Fontainebleau School Alumni Newsletter, and me in 1979 , unveiling the new Macintosh portrait painted by Brodeur and donated to Yale Divinity School after his original portrait of Macintosh had been vandalized and Yale refused to restore it. The portrait depicts Macintosh pointing to his famous "selective conscientious objection" Supreme Court case (United States v. Macintosh) with his left hand and the Biblical Commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" with his right hand. The portrait can be seen in the Divinity School Common Room.
























The grave of Hope Conklin Macintosh and Douglas Clyde Macintosh, Whitneyville Cemetery, on my graduation day, 1980, with my parents, myself and a friend.






















I Challenge Yale and the YDN to Answer these Questions


#1 By Grab; Absorb; Run! 5:28a.m. on March 25, 2010

Donors' intentions?

Take a look at the will of the late Hope Conklin Macintosh leaving every penny she and her late husband, Yale Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh, had (about $70,000 in 1958 ) for the Douglas Clyde Macintosh Fellowship in Systematic Theology to be awarded at graduation each year to a qualified and deserving student.

By your article's $1000 example, it should have grown considerably since then.

Where is it?

Where did the money go? (it has been absorbed and "lost" in the general fund).

I, and the executor of the Macintosh estate , Professor Juilian N. Hartt of the University of Virginia, fought this out with Yale in the 1970's and 80's. The Fellowship was "restored" for two or three years.

Where is it now?

"Take the money and run" (or absorb) is Yale's behavior with the donor in this matter.

PK
The Anti-Yale




Student prizes capped at $1k
Money to be used for financial aid, but some complain of ‘emasculation’
By Vivian Yee
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Thursday, March 25, 2010

When Arden Rogow-Bales ’10 entered the Classics Department’s annual Latin translation competition in the spring of his sophomore year, he thought he had a chance at winning — but he had no idea he would earn several thousand dollars for a few hours of Ovid.
The department had awarded Rogow-Bales the Samuel Henry Galpin Latin Prize, which Galpin’s son Samuel A. Galpin, class of 1870, established more than a century ago with a $1,000 donation. Because Galpin’s $1,000 has grown with Yale’s endowment, Rogow-Bales received considerably more than the $50 Latin prizewinners won at the turn...

#1 By Grab; Absorb; Run! 5:28a.m. on March 25, 2010

Donors' intentions?

Take a look at the will of the late Hope Conklin Macintosh leaving every penny she and her late husband, Yale Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh, had (about $70,000 in 1958 )for the Douglas Clyde Macintosh Fellowship in Systematic Theology to be awarded at graduation each year to a qualified and deserving student.

By your article's $1000 example, it should have grown considerably since then.

Where is it?

Where did the money go? (it has been absorbed and "lost" in the general fund).

I, and the executor of the Macintosh estate , Professor Juilian N. Hartt of the University of Virginia, fought this out with Yale in the 1970's and 80's. The Fellowship was "restored" for two or three years.

Where is it now?

"Take the money and run" (or absorb) is Yale's behavior with the donor in this matter.

PK
The Anti-Yale

#2 By Anon. 6:29a.m. on March 25, 2010

Using merit awards for financial aid strikes me effectively denying students' their just award. If I understand this correctly, what the university will do with large awards is decrease your financial aid award and fill the gap with the prize you earned. In effect, the student sees no financial benefit (or only a considerably reduced one) beyond what they would have already received through financial aid. At that point, why even bother competing for the prize. If I were a donor who intended to give a prize for merit rather than for need, I would be really annoyed by this.

#3 By Bi 9:58a.m. on March 25, 2010

I share the concerns of the first poster. This is troubling and could make many donors think twice before donating funds for a prize.

I hope the administrators go back and carefully review the terms of these agreements. Speaking as a donor for a prize awarded by another organization in Hew Haven, we expected our prize funds to make an impact in environmental science. A growing prize accomplishes that goal.

Donors must be very specific about their intentions.

#4 By Yale '10 9:59a.m. on March 25, 2010

Yes, it seems they are trying to raid funds where ever they can find them. A similar special fund that I am a beneficiary of was raided a few years back---it had grown much like the endowment, and Yale decided the general fund needed x percent.

#5 By Wow 10:03a.m. on March 25, 2010

This is ridiculous. Stop being greedy, Yale. We live in an expensive world and the students who earn these prizes can use every cent and more of what they're winning, be it for travel, research, grad school, paying bills after college, paying off loans, etc. Who cares if the donors thought about how big the prizes were going to get? They wanted hard working, talented students to see a generous reward for their efforts, and given inflation and the rise in the cost of living, $1000 is a pittance.

#6 By '13 10:31a.m. on March 25, 2010

So what happens when those students who aren't on financial aid win a prize? Do they get the full amount of money? Seems extremely unfair that they should get the full prize because their parents make more money than mine.

#7 By y11 10:41a.m. on March 25, 2010

This article is a little confusing. Are the prizes being cut in order to make more money available for general financial aid, or is the prize money just being converted from "cash" to financial aid specifically for the recipients? It states the latter will be the case for the English prize, but what about the others?

Either way, this seems like a bad thing. Before people jump on Bales for simply saying that his prize money saved him two summer jobs, there is a legitimate point there. Many humanities students rely on prize money to support a summer of unpaid, independent writing--particularly those who do fiction.

Converting prize money to financial aid is impractical, and giving it away entirely is unfair.

#8 By JJ 10:52a.m. on March 25, 2010

This is ridiculous. A university with an endowment of billions of dollars cries over losing pennies because they go to students who achieve things. Using the money for financial aid is just another way for Yale to avoid spending its own money because they will reduce the financial aid awards given from Yale accordingly.

Absolutely pathetic.

#9 By Breach of Fiduciary Duty? 11:11a.m. on March 25, 2010

Reappropriating funds against the intent of the donor? A "pat on the back" bonus for the consultant who put forth this "semi-repeating one-off" budget fix that fails to address underlying issues.

#10 By bad faith 11:16a.m. on March 25, 2010

If I were an outstanding student if Latin or Ancient who had chosen Yale over competing offers from similar schools, based in part on the availability of prize income to offset the need to seek additional income over the summer, I would regard this as a betrayal, and not just a betrayal of the donors' intentions, which were to encourage students to study a classically non-lucrative field of study. Talk about bait and switch!

#11 By Rudy '73 11:28a.m. on March 25, 2010

Sounds like theft to me, or at least a severe breach of fiduciary duty for a totally self-serving purpose. Someone might want to alert the Connecticut Attorney General. Where funds have been given to the University with a specified purpose, the University is a fiduciary for the donor or his/her estate. To siphon off the "excess" because the University, in it's infinite wisdom (and need) determines the donor would have wanted it that way is grossly irresponsible and outrageous.

Should I ever leave anything to benefit Yalies I will certainly NOT entrust the University to look after it.

#12 By Rudy '73 11:34a.m. on March 25, 2010

Perhaps the cap should be 20% of Yale's annual fees for tuition, room and board. Back in my day that would have maxed out an award at $900.

This new policy is not only borderline criminal, it is arrogant in the extreme.

#13 By skeptic 11:42a.m. on March 25, 2010

Prizes are invidious things, important only to insecure individuals who need outside validation of their self-worth. And are they actually "earned", as in payment for work performed, anyway?

#14 By priorities wrong 11:58a.m. on March 25, 2010

Why don't we take away something like Spring Fling that has no relationship to our educations but costs tens of thousands of dollars? That money doesn't seem to be tied up on donors wishes either.

#15 By What. The. Hell. 12:27p.m. on March 25, 2010

This is ridiculous!!!! Does Yale even have a right to absorb the funds of these prize endowments? What is the legality of this??? Can someone comment?

#16 By '08 1:14p.m. on March 25, 2010

I have somewhat mixed opinions on this. I don't think that undergrads should feel like they are "entitled" to these prizes; the meaningful part should be the recognition of one's accomplishments, and in that sense, the size of the monetary award should be unimportant.

At the same time, I was a recipient of a few-thousand-dollar prize from my department at graduation, and I have to say that that money was /incredibly/ useful when it came to moving to graduate school and furnishing my apartment and things. Money would have been quite a lot tighter without that award, and I feel like recognizing excellent students for their accomplishments and giving them a leg up post-yale is a really nice thing to do. A $1000 prize would still have been useful, but wouldn't have made the same impact.

#17 By @#14 1:52p.m. on March 25, 2010

Agreed. I've always thought that Yale should throw a carnival with maybe a couple rides and student live music rather than bringing in costly acts that people are just going to complain about. It would still be expensive, but I doubt it would cost nearly as much, and people would have more fun.

#18 By @16 1:57p.m. on March 25, 2010

I don't think people in general feel entitled. I doubt I'm going to be winning any prizes, because while my work is good, it's not of the truly spectacular quality of some of my peers. I'm not crying that I won't get a prize because of that.

I do, however, feel that those who have done work of a quality that earns them the recognition of one of these prizes ARE entitled to whatever amount the donor saw fit to give them. People who do exceptional work in non-lucrative fields can really use it, and they worked hard, so it's not like they don't deserve a reward. It's like if you work hard at your job and get a bonus: you earned it. And, like you said, anything helps when you're in your early 20s and trying to get started in life.

#19 By le_aviateur021 3:20p.m. on March 25, 2010

Simply despicable and shameful.

#20 By '02 4:42p.m. on March 25, 2010

Do we know how much the Snow, Sudler, Chittenden, Warren, and Hadley prizes will be? Many of these are based purely on GPA alone; is there an explanation why they are worth much more than other prizes?

#21 By adam t 5:46p.m. on March 25, 2010

look out: travel fellowships are next

#22 By lmc 7:06p.m. on March 25, 2010

Teachers chewed up and spit out in their pursuit for tenure. Graduate students not receiving accurate wages for being teachers. Silent tuition upticks. Prize money made invisible in order to be "used for financial aid."

Hurray for the bottom line.

#23 By anon 10:18p.m. on March 25, 2010

travel fellowships are already being cut.


#24 By appalled 2010 11:53a.m. on March 26, 2010

This is really terrible, especially in the case of things like that English dept. prize for graduate study. When will arts and humanities majors ever get such "bonuses" again?

#25 By '11 4:06p.m. on March 28, 2010

this is a disgusting breach of a probably now dead donor's will - it's like cremating someone when they wanted a burial.

#26 By Recent Alum 11:58p.m. on March 28, 2010

Even aside from the ethical considerations, I'm struggling to see how violating donors' intent is a good business decision for Yale in the long run. Why would today's alums be inclined to donate where the university is so nonchalant about honoring former donors?

#27 By 2010 2:29a.m. on March 29, 2010

Well, priorities wrong, Spring Fling IS largely "tied up on donors wishes"--it's largely funded by student activities fees, and I believe gets some money from people who donate to the University for "student life."

If you want to take money that students have paid and specifically earmarked for social activities and instead use it to give a prize to that DS tool who decided to read Iliad in the original greek "because something might be lost in translation," maybe you should put in an application to transfer to Harvard, or better yet, Chicago--where fun goes to die.

I'm not really sure that I agree with the tack that a lot of commenters are taking on here. I think that if the university were gutting need-based aid to cover its bottom line, it would be a travesty. However, what seems to be happening here is we're taking from a pot of money that is guaranteed to go to someone in a fairly monochrome and well-off field of study (seriously, look at the Yale facebook pics of Classics majors, then check out the average home prices in their zip codes--a rough proxy, but about the best I can come up with), and giving the money to people with less money, regardless of what major they choose to study. I think that's probably a good thing for society--given the choice between giving an upper middle class Classics major spending money and preventing a kid from the soundview projects from having to take on a crippling debt load, I think the latter represents a better allocation of resources.

Now, this isn't to say that Classics majors shouldnt' get any money. What I am saying is that in distributing money to students, regardless of major, Yale should hold true to what it told us when we were applying and distribute money on the basis of need.

* Yale Daily News or Daily Choose? My Faith Restored.

Mr. Paul Needham
Editor
The Yale Daily News

Dear Mr. Needham:

Over the last two days my post comments for "news" stories have been posted as usual without problem in your paper(two stories on "investment").

However my posts for "opinion" pieces have not made it to your posting board (Lady Gaga;"the words we use").

This troubles me.

Do you have a separate review committtee for news and opinion posts?

Am I being censored? If so, on what basis?

I have posted the "censored" Gaga post on my own blog http://theantiyale.blogspot.com with the question "AM I BEING CENSORED BY YDN".

You may read there that post itself and determine in your own mind what might or might not be offensive about it.

In fact, when it did not appear after eight hours yesterday, I resubmitted it in shorter form (the form which appears on my blog) and it was still ignored.

I believe censorship is beneath the dignity of YDN in 99% of all cases, perhaps excluding "shouting 'fire' in a closed theater" and PERHAPS printing iconoclastic cartoons when religious sects say they are profane in the eyes of that sect.

(I say PERHAPS because I think the Yale Press was wrong to so censor since unlike the YDN they are not a free daily publication with a wide readership who could unwittingly stumble onto something deemed profane by their personal religion.)

I would like to know if this is some technical glitch ("news" vs. "opinion" posting HTML idiosyncrasy?), or if your "opinion column" posting-review-committee has a problem with my free speech.

Do please let me know when you have a moment.

Cordially,


Paul D. Keane
M.Div. '80






Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: YaleDailyNews Contact Form


Mr. Keane:

I believe the issue here is the inclusion of the URL for your blog in some of your comments. So long as you avoid doing that, there's no reason to believe your comments won't be approved as quickly as possible.

Paul Needham


Mr. Needham:
Glad to hear it. I am happy to have my faith in YDN restored. I will be happy to omit the blog url in the future.
PK