Lin, a professor of cell biology and founding director of the Yale Stem Cell Center, was honored for his contributions to stem cell research. The prize, conferred by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, was first announced through a press release on the Academy’s website on Jan. 31.

“I feel extremely honored by the prize because it represents a seal of approval for my research by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a distinguished learned society established by the Founding Fathers in 1780,” Lin told the News. “It encourages me to continue pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge.” 

Roughly 150 people attended the ceremony, including members of the Academy, fellow faculty members at the School of Medicine and many of Lin’s current and former research group members and students. University President Peter Salovey gave opening and closing remarks, while David Oxtoby, president of the American Academy, gave an introduction highlighting Lin’s achievements. Nancy Brown, the dean of the School of Medicine, presented the prize to Lin. 

The speakers praised Lin’s contributions to the fields of stem cell biology, reproductive biology and  developmental biology. 

Lin extensively researched stem cell niche theory, which describes the microenvironment that sends signals to stem cells and allows them to self-renew. He also discovered Argonaute/Piwi genes, which play “indispensable roles” in stem cell self-renewal mechanisms and germline development, per Lin. 

“Your pioneering work, which includes the demonstration of stem cell asymmetric division, the proof of the stem cell niche theory, and the discoveries of the Argonaute/Piwi gene family and piRNAs, has illuminated the complex interplay of molecular signals that govern stem cell self-renewal and differentiation,” Brown said to Lin while giving him the award. “These discoveries have opened, as you have described, a ‘new world of genes’ and new avenues for therapeutic intervention in regenerative medicine.”

Lin joined the Yale faculty in 2006 and established the Yale Stem Cell Center, having founded and directed the Duke Stem Cell Research Program the year prior. Under his direction, the Yale Stem Cell Center has expanded from two member labs to 102 labs, making it among the largest stem cell research organizations in the world.

Beyond his research, Lin has also mentored researchers and graduate students who have gone on to establish their own labs. Katherine Uyhazi GRD ’12 MED ’13, Lin’s first MD/PhD student at Yale, started her lab at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. In an email to the News, Uyhazi emphasized Lin’s ability to guide students through both scientific and personal questions.

“His mentorship also extends beyond science — he once gave a lab meeting on finding happiness in your career!” Uyhazi wrote. “‘Enjoy the process itself, not just the end goal,’ he said. This advice has stuck with me over the years and I now find myself passing on his words of wisdom to my own students.”

Daniel Cox, who was Lin’s first-ever graduate student at Duke University, now serves as director of the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. Cox said that Lin’s research attracted him even before they both joined Duke.

“I actually reached out to him when he was still at the Carnegie Institute in his postdoc, and [Lin was] like, ‘how do you find me?’ But I had been following his work, even in his postdoctoral studies,” Cox said. “By the time I knew he was coming to Duke, I was so excited. Even as a junior faculty member, it was clear that he was going to be a mover and shaker and intellectual thought leader in the field.”

Oxtoby, the Academy president, emphasized how infrequently the Academy confers the Amory Prize. The Academy’s prize committee presented just two out of its eleven total prizes in 2024 as Lin received the Amory Prize and British-American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah received the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies.

Originally known as the Francis Amory Septennial Prize, the Amory Prize was first awarded in 1940 to researchers who contribute “conspicuously meritorious work” to the “treatment and cure of diseases and derangement of the human sexual generative organs in general.” Since then, the Academy has broadened the scope of the award to include reproductive medicine and physiology more generally. 

Before Lin, the prize was most recently awarded in 2020 to Ruth Lehmann and Gertrud Schüpbach for their research in DNA repair, embryonic development, RNA regulation and stem cell research. 

Lin’s professional path has not been without challenges. As a Chinese-born academic who graduated from Fudan University in 1982, Lin said factors outside of the scientific process, such as geopolitics, have impacted him and other Chinese-American scientists.

“In the past few years, geopolitical tensions between the US and China have affected Chinese-American scientists, including myself, and STEM students from China,” Lin wrote. “McCarthyism-like sentiments among some right-wing politicians sparked fear, leading to a sharp decline in talent retention since 2018.” 

In March 2022, the University suspended Lin and placed him on paid administrative leave amid a Department of Justice investigation. 

Lin received an outpouring of support from University faculty members, who wrote multiple letters defending Lin and expressing concern over the University’s response to the investigation, which they claimed lacked due process. Faculty members also suggested that Lin was unfairly targeted on the basis of his Chinese descent. 

The DOJ never publicly revealed its allegations and eventually dropped the investigation, and Lin was reinstated to his lab in April 2022.

“As we acknowledge the unique experiences that come with being an Asian American researcher, it’s crucial to highlight that the pursuit of scientific excellence transcends cultural or ethnic boundaries,” Lin wrote. “It’s my hope that by sharing my experiences, I can inspire young researchers from diverse backgrounds to pursue their passions in science, regardless of the obstacles they may face.”

Lin also expressed hope that recent developments, such as the September 2023 establishment of the Asian Faculty Association at Yale — which was founded to “promote and protect” Asian and Asian American faculty members — and the recognition of Yan Fuqing, School of Medicine class of 1909 and the first Asian graduate from the medical school, indicate growing support for Chinese- and Asian-American faculty. 

“Upon learning about my prize, the University’s leadership once again demonstrated their support by hosting a wonderful ceremony and celebration for me,” Lin wrote. “I have all reason to believe that Asian-American faculty will continue to thrive at Yale.”

The Academy elected 269 new members out of 1,200 nominees in 2023.

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The demonstration comes amid monthslong calls from students for divestment from weapons manufacturers. At the same time, a University review of the investments in weapons manufacturing is “nearing its conclusion,” according to the University spokesperson.

“The coalition that organized this action is unprecedented in the campus organizing around both Palestine and weapons divestment thus far,” Naina Agrawal-Hardin ’25, an organizer for EJC, said. 

At this point, Agrawal-Hardin said, organizers have felt that they have “exhausted” every means of communication, such as sending over 1,800 letters to the Yale Corporation and attending meetings with the Yale Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility. 

The protest was co-organized by Yale Jews For Ceasefire, Yalies4Palestine, Graduate Students for Palestine and Law Students for Justice in Palestine. Over 25 other organizations across Yale College and the graduate and professional schools, New Haven and Connecticut signed onto the EJC’s demands.

In 2018, the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility adopted a policy banning investments in retail outlets that market and sell assault weapons to the general public due to the “grave social injury” they cause. The CCIR did not issue regulations on investments in weapons manufacturing. Student organizers from the EJC criticized Yale’s continued investment in weapons manufacturers that sell to militaries and governments. 

“As Israel continues its violent assault on Rafah, Yale’s continued financial entanglement with the war industry is a moral failure,” Lumisa Bista ’25 said. “It’s time for the Trustees to finish what they started in 2018 and divest from all weapons.”

In the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, Hamas killed 1,200 people and took over 240 people as hostages. Israel responded with a formal declaration of war against Hamas and a military offensive in Gaza. According to Israel, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Hamas still held more than 130 people hostage as of Feb. 15. As of Feb. 19, Israeli attacks have killed at least 29,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. 

Last Monday, in an effort to free Hamas-held hostages, Israel launched airstrikes on Rafah, a city in the southern region of the Gaza Strip filled with more than one million Palestinians seeking refuge from Israeli attacks. CNN reported yesterday that Israel plans to expand its military operation in Rafah if Hamas does not free all hostages by the start of Ramadan.   

Yale’s November 2023 SEC filings reveal that the University holds over 6,500 shares of iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF, an exchange-traded fund managed by Blackrock that invests in major weapons manufacturers such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. The iShares website notes that this fund “does not seek to follow a sustainable, impact or ESG investment strategy.” 

According to the SEC filings, the University also holds more than 342,000 shares in Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF, which is exposed to weapons manufacturers that hold joint ventures with Israeli defense companies. Weapon Free Funds, a search platform that tracks whether investments are used to finance military weapons manufacturers, gives the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF a grade of C, meaning the fund is “invested in nuclear weapons and/or controversial weapons below the threshold of 2.5%.”

Based on its preliminary research, the EJC wrote on its Instagram page that Yale does not make public where it invests 99 percent of its $40.7 billion endowment. 

In addition to research into public records, the EJC’s demands are aligned with student activism on other campuses and with precedent at Yale, per Agrawal-Hardin. 

“[The EJC’s demands are] usually a combination of what has proven successful or what is being demanded at peer institutions,” said Agrawal-Hardin. “We want to stand in solidarity with other student movements for ethical investments. It’s responsive to what precedents have been set at Yale. So for example, the military weapons manufacturer divestment demand is a response to the 2018 divestment from assault weapons retailers.”

In November, University President Peter Salovey told the News that the ACIR, which advises the CCIR, may revisit its policies around investments in weapons manufacturing. In an email to the News, Yale’s spokesperson wrote that this review is now underway.

“A University review of calls to extend that policy to cover manufacturers who effectively retail to the general public is nearing its conclusion, at which point the results will be shared with the community,” the spokesperson wrote. “The ACIR is separately aware of more recent community concerns about military weapons manufacturing, and its standard review of such issues is underway.”

Yale College Council President Julian Suh-Toma ’25 and Vice President Maya Fonkeu ’25, who signed onto the demands in a personal capacity, also brought the demands to the attention of the Faculty Senate during a meeting on Thursday, prior to the demonstration on Friday. 

“As student leaders who have a finger on the pulse of the university, we felt that it was somewhat our duty to share with the Faculty Senate this part of advocacy that was going on on campus,” said Suh-Toma, “especially because we know that so many student organizations on campus had signed on, and it was a large coalition.”

According to Suh-Toma, members of the Faculty Senate generated “collaborative” ideas to engage with the issue of divestment, including hosting a debate or holding broader conversations in the Yale community about Yale’s holdings and investment practices.

In January, the University of Michigan faculty’s Senate Assembly passed a resolution for U-M “to divest from companies that invest in Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza.” 

EJC organizers also criticized the Yale Corporation for what they called a lack of transparency and obstinacy to student attempts at communication. 

The Yale Corporation’s contact form notes that “the trustees will not review messages related to ethical investing issues.” It instead asks that these messages about ethical investing be directed to the ACIR.

“Yale bears lux et veritas as its motto but keeps its community in the dark about the full extent of its investments in military weapons,” Jews for Ceasefire organizer Adam Nussbaum ’25 said. “We deserve to know whether our education is being funded with investments that kill.”

The News reached out to members of the Corporation for comment but received no response.

In a recent press release, the EJC stated that “sources told the EJC that trustees met in a remote location for the rest of the afternoon to avoid student demonstrators.” Yale’s spokesperson denied these claims.

According to the spokesperson, trustees followed a “planned schedule of visits with students and faculty” at various locations on campus throughout the day. Yale also confirmed in an email to the News that trustees met at the Humanities Quadrangle as well as the Wu Tsai Institute.

The Board of Trustees will meet next on April 20. 

Correction, Feb. 20: This article has been updated to amend an attribution error.

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Following the models of the current four cultural houses — the Afro-American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Native American Cultural Center and La Casa Cultural — MENA students will have its own dedicated space, peer liaisons and an assistant director, per Senior Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Communications Paul McKinley. 

Salovey’s public commitment to establish a MENA space is the culmination of Yale College Council lobbying and student group organizing, dating back to at least 2018. In the spring of 2022, the AACC dedicated a room on its third floor to MENA students, which since has hosted affiliated student organizations, such as the MENA Students Association, Arab Students Association, Persian Students at Yale and Yale Armenian Network.

In September, the inaugural AACC-MENA peer liaisons spoke with the News about the difficulty of keeping track of the racial demographics and identifying their PLees. McKinley wrote that the new space will have its own peer liaisons, independent of the AACC.

Following Salovey’s announcement, AACC Dean Joliana Yee was put in charge of a search this month for the MENA Assistant Director in preparation for hiring someone in time for the upcoming fall semester, according to a written statement by McKinley. Furthermore, McKinley told the News that Yee has already reached out to the current AACC-MENA peer liaisons for input on qualities for the candidate. 

“Since starting my tenure at Yale in 2018, the AACC and the other cultural centers have always been supportive of MENA-identified students in their efforts to have increased programming and resources to celebrate their distinct cultures and histories,” Yee wrote to the News.

Zahra Yarali ’24, co-head AACC Peer Liaison and the first MENA-identifying PL at the AACC, also expressed appreciation for Yee’s efforts to incorporate students’ opinions in the process.

Yarali wrote that Yee asked for her general input when drafting the job description.

“That’s one way I appreciated how intentional she’s being about including students throughout the hiring process,” Yarali said.

Although unable to provide any prospective addresses of a potential MENA cultural space, McKinley, wrote to the News that they “expect to have a suite of rooms for the MENA space not far from the AACC,” which will “replace the existing space in the AACC and provide additional functions such as a kitchen.”

In order to fund this space, McKinley added that a current priority is determining the size of Yale College’s MENA community. However, because of the limitations of the United States Census — which only has options for  “white,” “Black,” “American Indian or Alaska Native,” “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander” — students have not had any opportunity to identify as MENA formally in the University’s system, and the admissions office and Student Information Services do not recognize MENA status. As a result, McKinley wrote to the News that the YCDO will be working with student groups to help identify students across the broad range of countries and cultural and socio-religious identities that the MENA label includes.

This problem of not being able to formally track MENA students has proven difficult for the AACC-MENA peer liaisons, who did not have an official way of identifying their potential PLees at the beginning of the year, unlike other cultural centers, who receive lists of their potential students.

Similar to the AACC, the Af-Am House has also affiliated with and provided support for various MENA student organizations, such as the Arab Student Association and Yale Muslim Students Association. In response to Salovey’s announcement of the MENA space, Af-Am House Dean Timeica Bethel told the News that she imagines that The Af-Am House’s involvement with MENA communities will continue. 

“I envision the House collaborating on programming and events with the MENA cultural house, just as we do with the other cultural centers and affinity spaces on campus,” Bethel wrote to the News.

Salovey’s announcement creating the new MENA space came amid student concerns about safety amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the resulting campus tensions.

Palestinian and Muslim students expressed safety concerns following the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont. Concerns also grew in October when messages declaring “Death to Palestine” were written on a Grace Hopper College whiteboard, and in November when at least 15 students had their personal information displayed on “doxxing trucks” that drove through New Haven. 

On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel then launched a full military offensive in Gaza, and as of Jan. 26, has killed at least 26,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.

Also in Salovey’s December announcement, titled “Against Hatred,” were steps to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia on Yale’s campus, including two standing committees on Jewish life and MENA and Muslim life. Salovey further promised permanent security at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life and noted one incident of physical confrontation on campus against a student wearing a keffiyeh. 

In addition to the MENA space, the announcement pledged to hire a second Muslim chaplain, although none has yet been hired. In December, Yale’s chapter of the Muslim Students Association called on the University to hire additional staff to support Muslim life at Yale, such as a female assistant Muslim chaplain and more Muslim mental health counselors.

Yale’s first cultural center, the Afro-American Cultural Center, was established in 1969.

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Vincent Jr.’s father, Francis Vincent Sr. ’31, was captain of the baseball and football teams during his time at Yale. Vincent Jr. ascended to the role of MLB commissioner following the death of Angelo Bartlett Giamatti ’60 GRD ’64 — Yale’s 19th president — and resigned three years later after facing criticism from Major League team owners for his handling of labor issues. 

The endowment will assume the costs from Yale paying for the baseball head coach’s salary. According to Yale’s For Humanity capital campaign site, which outlines minimum gift levels for endowed funds, a minimum of $1,500,000 is required to endow an athletic coach’s position. 

“We are grateful for the generous gift that Fay Jr. ’63 made,” Victoria Chun, the director of athletics, wrote to the News. “This will not only provide great support for Yale Baseball but honors the memory of Fay ’31 and his tremendous legacy as a Yale athlete and student.”

Baseball head coach Brian Hamm pointed to the Vincent family’s “rich history in the baseball community,” lauding the endowment as a “tremendous honor.” 

Hamm added that the endowment allows Vincent Sr.’s legacy to be “embedded into the roots” of Yale’s baseball program.

“Fay Jr. ’63 wanted a way to honor his father’s leadership, commitment, and love for Yale, and with this gift, Fay ’31 and his legacy will live on through the Yale Baseball program,” Hamm wrote.

Vincent Jr. attributes the seeds of his present-day donation of  “several million dollars” to a moment that occurred about 30 years ago when, after delivering a talk about former renowned Yale swimming coach Robert Kiphuth, then-undergraduate student and baseball player Thomas Hutchison ’94 approached him to seek mentorship.

After graduating from Yale Law School, Vincent Jr. went on to become the president and chief executive officer of Columbia Pictures in 1978. When the company was acquired by the Coca-Cola company in 1982, he later became the senior vice-president of Coca-Cola as well as president and CEO of its entertainment sector. According to Vincent Jr, it was his ownership of a large sum of Coca-Cola stock that allowed him to endow the baseball coach position at Yale.

Vincent Jr. added that the plan was cemented after Hamm and Hutchison visited his home in Florida last month and pitched him the idea.

“This is about a son trying to do something that would memorialize his father,” Vincent told the News. “And I’m doing it for my father in a way that I think combines his great interest in sports with the fact that he was a poor kid who had a scholarship at Yale and turned out to have a very fine life and career.”

According to the University’s For Humanity capital campaign site, Yale has endowed 20 head coaching positions in the past few years.

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The Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project’s semesterly fast is returning to convert Yalies’ meal swipes into monetary donations for local organizations and other YHHAP initiatives. On the day of the fast, participating students forgo their dining hall meals. Yale Hospitality then directs the monetary value of the meal swipes to YHHAP. The donation period runs from Nov. 6 to Nov. 16, and the fast will take place on Nov. 17. 

“Participating in the YHHAP Fast is the easiest way for busy Yale students to give back to New Haven in a meaningful way,” said Paul Douglass ’26, who co-coordinates the YHHAP Fast. 

Students can sign up for the fast through Yale Hub by navigating to the “Dining” tab, selecting the YHHAP option and opting in. At the end of the donation period, Yale Hospitality grants the total value of the donated meal swipes to YHHAP, which then distributes the funds to its partner organizations. 

Student organizers, however, told the News that they have encountered a roadblock with Yale Hospitality in raising money.

Last fall, Yale Hospitality exchanged $10,087.38 for 1,277 sign-ups, working out to $7.90 per student, or $2.63 per meal swipe, according to Douglass. The values of dining hall meal swipes vary, with the minimum value being $5.50 for continental breakfast and the maximum value being $17 for dinner, according to reporting by the News last month. These values, organizers pointed out, fall far above the per-meal amount Yale Hospitality gives YHHAP. 

In interviews with the News, YHHAP organizers expressed frustration with the discrepancy between Yale Hospitality’s per-meal donations through the fast and the price of students’ meal swipes through Yale’s meal plans.

According to Nikhe Braimah ’25, co-director of YHHAP, the organization has tried to negotiate a higher amount for Yale Hospitality to reimburse with each meal swipe. Thus far, he said, those negotiations have failed.

“[The $7.90] includes all the meal swipes for the entire day being taken away,” Braimah said. “But we know that monetary value doesn’t line up. For example, at the Bow Wow, you get 10 [dollars] just for lunch rather than [$7.90] for all three meal swipes or the whole day. In the past, we’ve tried to work with Yale Hospitality to see where that discrepancy is coming from. Unfortunately, we haven’t been successful yet.”

According to Jocelyn Ra ’22, who also co-coordinates YHHAP Fast, part of the discrepancy between the standard meal prices and Yale Hospitality’s donations is due to residual labor costs, as Yale Hospitality employees still work on the day of the fast. 

Ra also noted that YHHAP Fast organizers previously attempted to negotiate higher donation prices due to the rising rates that students pay for meal plans. 

For example, in 2019, Yale’s boarding cost, which is equivalent to the price of the Full Meal Plan, was $7,200 a year, or $3,600 per semester. This academic year, the full meal plan costs $4,140 per semester, a cost increase of 15 percent. Between 2019 and 2023, Yale Hospitality raised the amount donated per fast swipe from $7.44 to $7.90, an increase of 6.18 percent over four years. 

“We initially also wanted to enter negotiations because of inflation and given the rising meal prices that Yale students have to pay,” Ra said. “[Yale Hospitality] said that it was going to be a 6 percent increase every year, but when we did the math, it was not 6 percent [per year].”

In spring 2022, Yale Hospitality donated $7.79 per student signup, whereas in fall 2022, they donated $7.90 per student. A 6 percent increase would have constituted $8.26 per student in fall 2022.

In a March email written from a Yale Hospitality administrator to a former YHHAP Fast coordinator, which was obtained by the News, Yale Hospitality claimed there was a 6 percent increase in donation prices between the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 academic years. Similar claims were made in an email sent to YHHAP organizers in the fall of 2022, which the News also obtained.

“While we don’t provide specific calculations on a per-meal basis, we have done our best to make sure that this is a fair assessment and we did give a significant increase of 6% per meal last year, resulting in a larger donation than in previous years,” a Yale Hospitality administrator wrote the email from March.

Douglass and Ra expressed frustration with what they alleged was stalled communications and a lack of transparency from Yale Hospitality. 

Yale Hospitality did not respond to requests to set up a meeting with the coordinators until the YHHAP leaders asked Dwight Hall administrators to intermediate, per Douglass. 

Ra said that transparency is especially important for nonprofit fundraisers such as YHHAP Fast.

“When we get blocked by [administrative challenges], that makes it very hard for us to be transparent with the rest of the Yale body in general,” Ra said. “It devalues our efforts to try to make sure that [donors] know exactly step-by-step where their money is going towards, and it also devalues [donors’] intentions as well to try to help New Haven in general, which is something that everybody who partakes in the YHHAP Fast wants to do.”

Douglass expressed his hope to expand the fast in years to come. His long-term goal, he said, is for Yale Hospitality to donate meal swipes that students do not use on other days of the year. 

Meal swipes — aside from bonus meals — do not roll over between semesters or years, leaving many students already paying for more food than they eat, he explained. Points roll over between only the fall and spring semesters.

“The fast is right now just one day a semester, but I’m sure everyone’s had the experience of thinking, ‘I didn’t use my meal swipe today, I wish I could do something with it,’” Douglass said. “So we want to expand. The tricky thing is working with Yale Hospitality, and obviously, if we were to expand the fast they would have to expand the amount that they donate.” 

Ra also said that leaders from the Muslim Students Association and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life have separately reached out about the possibility of donating their unused meal swipes during religious fasts to YHHAP. Negotiations with Yale Hospitality on this idea “didn’t progress,” she explained, saying that the coordinators hope to make this idea a reality in the near future.

Christelle Ramos, Yale Hospitality’s Senior Manager, declined to comment for this story.

“Even though [the initiatives to expand the fast] didn’t work out, I think it was very encouraging just hearing that people wanted to use their entire capacity as a Yale student to increase the amount of impact that we could have on New Haven,” Ra said. “That’s a really uplifting thing to hear.”

This year, YHAAP is donating to organizations including the Sunrise Cafe, New Reach, the New Haven Inner-City Enrichment Center and Project Access. These organizations work with New Haven residents affected by homelessness and food insecurity, with some running pantry services while others provide access to medical care. YHHAP partnered with these organizations for the first time during its fast last spring.

Aside from nonprofit organizations, YHHAP also partners with local businesses, including the Claire’s Corner Copia, Haven Hot Chicken, Juice Box and Yorkside Pizza to provide  direct monetary donations to the initiative or discounts to participating students.

According to Arushi Dogra ’24, co-director of YHHAP, while the Dwight Hall service group has long-standing relationships with nonprofits in New Haven, organizers determine partners for the fast on a semesterly basis.

“How we usually select that is by speaking with community leaders and asking where the need is,” Dogra said.

Fast partners from previous years may notify YHHAP that they are not currently in need of donations, whereas other organizations may reach out to YHHAP to request a partnership. The coordinators also work with the Community Impact Lab at the School of Public Health, to run an analysis of the New Haven nonprofit landscape and identify where donations will make the most impact.

For Project Access, an organization that provides access to medical care for uninsured and underserved people in the New Haven area, the donation has been “a blessing,” according to Giselle Carlotta-McDonald, the organization’s executive director. She said that the donation from YHHAP makes the entirety of their “patient flexible funds.”

When a community health worker identifies a patient experiencing extreme food insecurity, the health worker from Project Access can give the patient direct aid in the form of gift cards to grocery stores, alongside information about standard food pantry resources and food stamps. 

“Having these funds helps us when we know that there’s no other resource immediately available. It allows us to give a patient who is in dire need, who hasn’t eaten in days, and maybe has children, the ability to get something to eat for the next week or days, as they wait on the application or a call back or on a waitlist” for more long-term resources, Carlotta-McDonald said. 

Carlotta-McDonald also noted that last year, Project Access received $1,639.83 from the YHHAP Fast. With these funds, the organization was able to help 12 families, with an average of $136 per family. 

Carlotta-McDonald said that the organization prioritizes helping as many individuals as possible with limited funds. 

“Every dollar that we get we stretch it as far as we can,” Carlotta-McDonald said. “Unfortunately, there are so many people in need, so we try to think about how many families we can help. And patients are extremely grateful, which is how it benefits the community health workers too.” 

Students organized the first annual “Fast Against World Hunger” on Yale’s campus in 1974.

Update, Feb. 12: A previous version of the article listed the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen as a fast partner that did not require donations — this has been removed.

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The School of Medicine unveiled a bust of Yan, gifted by his grandchildren — Doreen Chen and Yan Zhiyuan, also doctors — at the Medical Historical Library within the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library building. The first half of the event featured a series of academic lectures that detailed Yan’s accomplishments, while the second half included remarks from the event organizers and Yan’s grandchildren. The event also had live translators to interpret between Mandarin Chinese and English. 

“Dr. Yan Fuqing was a medical practitioner, a public health advocate, a civil servant and educator,” Nancy Brown ’81, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said at the unveiling. “But he was also a visionary. He created a bridge between the United States and China for medical professionals.”

After graduating from the School of Medicine, Yan Fuqing later oversaw the Hunan-Yale Agreement, a program that established exchanges of English instructors and medical personnel between the Yale-China Association — formerly Yale-in-China — and Hunan Medical College. Yan also helped found the Shanghai Medical College at Fudan University and Xiangya School of Medicine at Central South University.

At the event, Yan Fuqing’s grandchildren spoke of his inspirational character in addition to his academic achievements.

“Grandpa brought Yale’s motto of ‘educate and nurture creative leaders in medicine and science’ to his motherland,” Chen said in her remarks. “He cultivated his passion and willingness to serve in his students as well, which led to many of them becoming leading experts in the medical field of China.”

Beyond his medical accomplishments in China, Nancy Chapman ’77, trustee of the Yale-China Association, and other administrators celebrated Dr. Yan’s legacy and how he has inspired long-standing bilateral relations between Yale, Fudan University and Central South University. Qin Guowen, the vice governor of Hunan, and Gary Locke, former U.S. ambassador to China, also attended the event. 

Locke, in particular, emphasized the importance of these bilateral relations to the future of medicine.

“Cultural exchange is so important because if we’re going to solve some of the difficult issues between nations on behalf of the world, we need to have a better understanding of each other’s perspectives, viewpoints, culture, history,” Locke said. “The world is expecting leadership from the United States and China. The United States can’t do it alone. China can’t do it alone.”

While experts say the geopolitical relationship between China and the United States remains tense, Qin Yan, a professor of pathology at the medical school and president of the Asian Faculty Association at Yale, expressed hope that local relations between cities such as New Haven and Changsha — which established a sister-city relationship in 2018 — would pave the way for more large-scale exchanges of innovation and medical advances.

“We still have major concerns over the ability to collaborate with Chinese or other foreign institutions,” Yan wrote in an email to the News. “We hope that local and institutional collaborations could relieve some of the concerns. It would be easier if we could collaborate under a master institutional agreement.”

According to Brown, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 10 percent of graduating medical students from Yale completed a clinical rotation at Xiangya School of Medicine. Faculty such as Yan also mentor postdoctoral trainees who graduated from the two Chinese institutions that Yan himself helped to establish.

For Yan, the event also marks a positive trajectory in representation for Asian and Asian American faculty at Yale.

“This event and the strong launch of [the Asian Faculty Association at Yale] definitely increased visibility of Asian faculty,” Qin Yan wrote. “The support from the university and medical school DEI offices are strong, but there is a lot to be done to increase the representation of Asian faculty in the leadership roles.”

The Yale-China Association was founded in 1901.

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The School of Medicine unveiled a bust of Yan, gifted by his grandchildren — Doreen Chen and Yan Zhiyuan, also doctors — at the Medical Historical Library within the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library building. The first half of the event featured a series of academic lectures that detailed Yan’s accomplishments, while the second half included remarks from the event organizers and Yan’s grandchildren. The event also had live translators to interpret between Mandarin Chinese and English. 

“Dr. Yan Fuqing was a medical practitioner, a public health advocate, a civil servant and educator,” Nancy Brown ’81, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said at the unveiling. “But he was also a visionary. He created a bridge between the United States and China for medical professionals.”

After graduating from the School of Medicine, Yan Fuqing later oversaw the Hunan-Yale Agreement, a program that established exchanges of English instructors and medical personnel between the Yale-China Association — formerly Yale-in-China — and Hunan Medical College. Yan also helped found the Shanghai Medical College at Fudan University and Xiangya School of Medicine at Central South University.

At the event, Yan Fuqing’s grandchildren spoke of his inspirational character in addition to his academic achievements.

“Grandpa brought Yale’s motto of ‘educate and nurture creative leaders in medicine and science’ to his motherland,” Chen said in her remarks. “He cultivated his passion and willingness to serve in his students as well, which led to many of them becoming leading experts in the medical field of China.”

Beyond his medical accomplishments in China, Nancy Chapman ’77, trustee of the Yale-China Association, and other administrators celebrated Dr. Yan’s legacy and how he has inspired long-standing bilateral relations between Yale, Fudan University and Central South University. Qin Guowen, the vice governor of Hunan, and Gary Locke, former U.S. ambassador to China, also attended the event. 

Locke, in particular, emphasized the importance of these bilateral relations to the future of medicine.

“Cultural exchange is so important because if we’re going to solve some of the difficult issues between nations on behalf of the world, we need to have a better understanding of each other’s perspectives, viewpoints, culture, history,” Locke said. “The world is expecting leadership from the United States and China. The United States can’t do it alone. China can’t do it alone.”

While experts say the geopolitical relationship between China and the United States remains tense, Qin Yan, a professor of pathology at the medical school and president of the Asian Faculty Association at Yale, expressed hope that local relations between cities such as New Haven and Changsha — which established a sister-city relationship in 2018 — would pave the way for more large-scale exchanges of innovation and medical advances.

“We still have major concerns over the ability to collaborate with Chinese or other foreign institutions,” Yan wrote in an email to the News. “We hope that local and institutional collaborations could relieve some of the concerns. It would be easier if we could collaborate under a master institutional agreement.”

According to Brown, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 10 percent of graduating medical students from Yale completed a clinical rotation at Xiangya School of Medicine. Faculty such as Yan also mentor postdoctoral trainees who graduated from the two Chinese institutions that Yan himself helped to establish.

For Yan, the event also marks a positive trajectory in representation for Asian and Asian American faculty at Yale.

“This event and the strong launch of [the Asian Faculty Association at Yale] definitely increased visibility of Asian faculty,” Qin Yan wrote. “The support from the university and medical school DEI offices are strong, but there is a lot to be done to increase the representation of Asian faculty in the leadership roles.”

The Yale-China Association was founded in 1901.

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Rees was a 2010 World Fellow, and the conversation, led by current World Fellow Guy Disney, focused on how city leaders are uniquely positioned to tackle climate change.

“How do we transform the way we view economics, politics, food transport?” Rees asked attendees at the event. “Just simply by national governments eking out conversations and treaties? The layer of leadership that’s missing is the city layer.”

The World Fellows program, established in 2002, selects mid-career professionals from countries other than the United States with achievements ranging from a regional to an international level. The program runs annually from mid-August to mid-December and brings fellows together to receive professional development, network with fellow leaders and share policy expertise, all with the goal of building the “good society.”

In an email to the News, International Leadership Center, or ILC, Program Manager Yuval Ben-David wrote that Rees’ talk came as part of a series of events hosted by the ILC “to highlight leadership tackling the most complex issues in the world today.” 

These events also include a talk with former Colombian president Ivan Duque last week and one with Sierra Leone’s foreign minister on Monday, Sept. 25.

Parallel to the World Fellows program is the ILC’s Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship “for sixteen rising climate leaders from the Global South,” per Ben-David. The ILC also plans to host additional events featuring “others in [the ILC network] working across the climate space.”

Referring to Patricia Espinosa’s, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary, quote — “cities are where the climate battle will be won or lost” — Rees also emphasized the role of cities as potential actors in international cooperation on climate policy. 

“Cities are a track of activity and delivery that are available whether or not national governments are delivering,” Rees said. “We need to reframe cities so they’re not just seen as national possessions but as international assets.”

Jeannette Ickovics, professor at the Yale School of Public Health and member of the Resilient Cities Network, hopes to apply Rees’ advice on cross-city cooperation to her intersectional work between public health and climate change. 

She said that Rees was “incredibly articulate” in discussing how cities can combat climate change with multi-sectoral solutions. 

“Cities are dynamic organisms with a lot of different stakeholders,” Ickovics said. “And the complex challenges that we face, for example in climate, in health, in housing, really require all of us to work collaboratively to identify solutions that are feasible and that also enable us not just to survive but to thrive and flourish.”

The conversation also focused on Rees’ experiences in handling racial tensions in Bristol. In June 2020, at the height of Black Lives Matter protests in the U.K., Bristol demonstrators pulled down a statue of Edward Colston, who was a trans-Atlantic slave trader in the 17th century. 

As the first Black mayor of African descent in the UK, Rees said that he faced pressure from opposing sides on how to handle the controversy surrounding the statue. He could not, he said, condone damage to public property while also being a descendant of people who were enslaved.

“I’m the first Black African heritage mayor [of a major city] in Europe,” Rees said. “If the first thing I go and do is take down a statue of a white slave trader, who many white people see as synonymous with the identity of the city, what do you think I speak about for the next four years, and what do you think the consequences are for the next Black people to come forward to try and get elected?”

Rees added that he thinks the situation was a binary option in a world that “doesn’t fit with binary options.” 

This view, Rees said, remains a problem that deserves attention in coming years. 

“One of the big challenges for the way we do politics in the future is that we start dealing with the fact that certain problems are not solvable in a binary way, and two difficult things can be true at the same time,” Rees said. 

The ILC’s Climate Fellows will attend the Conference of the Parties, or COP 28, in Dubai this winter.

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On Friday, Sept. 15, Asian and Asian American faculty gathered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Brady Auditorium to announce AFAY’s inaugural board. The News spoke with some of AFAY’s founders about their reasons for establishing AFAY and their visions for the association’s future.

“Some challenges Asian faculty face are, for example, the glass ceiling and a lack of representation in leadership due to the perception that Asians are perpetual foreigners, and also issues of international politics,” said AFAY election moderator Haifan Lin. “We hope that, through AFAY, faculty can share their common experiences and find support in each other.”

The organization aims to build support both within and beyond its membership, and its mission statement includes advocacy for both members and for Yale’s Asian students, especially when facing challenges related to their cultural backgrounds or ethnicities.

In her remarks during AFAY’s first general meeting, Karen Lee Anderson, Associate Provost for Academic Resources and Faculty Development, said that 47 percent of non-ladder research faculty at the Yale School of Medicine identified as Asian in 2022. AFAY president-elect — an organizational term that essentially means vice president — Yongli Zhang pointed to the growing population of Asian faculty at Yale as a sign of AFAY’s “timely” and “much needed” establishment, and he emphasized the positive impact that faculty groups can have as “advocates for positive change at Yale.” 

However, organization members made sure to explain that their organization’s mission was University-wide.

“It’s important to note that we’re not just an association for Asian and Asian American faculty members. We’re open to all faculty regardless of race, ethnicity, or rank, and we also seek to include and build relationships with Asian American students on campus,” said Siyuan Wang, AFAY secretary. 

Currently, 194 faculty members have registered to join AFAY, of which 12 are non-Asian.

Lin, who was a part of core organizing efforts leading up to the elections, described the start of AFAY as coming from “after-dinner chats” and “community gatherings.” According to Lin, one faculty member hosted a barbecue for the AFAY organizers to meet and discuss plans for affiliation with the University. 

Both Lin and Anderson also highlighted AFAY’s collaboration with University administration, including with Darin Latimore, deputy dean of the School of Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Lakia Scott, associate provost for Faculty Development and Diversity; both Latimore and Scott were also in attendance at the general meeting. 

“We are glad to report that the Provost’s office is very supportive of the establishment of AFAY,” AFAY president Qin Yan wrote in an email to 460 faculty members across Yale’s schools prior to board elections.

To vote for board candidates, faculty members used an online system managed by the School of Medicine’s DEI Office, independent of the AFAY founders and members. Voting took place from Sept. 12 to 14, and Latimore announced the results during the organization’s inaugural meeting the next day.

AFAY’s board includes six people; the group will later hold a run-off election for the sixth board position, which is currently tied. 

AFAY organizers relied on emails, phone calls and word of mouth to invite faculty members to nominate themselves and their colleagues for board elections. The AFAY board members expressed interest in continuing to expand the organization, and, in an email to the News, Lin cited an “extensive effort to achieve fair representation of different Asian ethnic groups, gender[s and] career stages,” alongside efforts to include members across Yale College and the University’s 14 graduate and professional schools. 

“A lot of the faculty members are associated with the School of Medicine because traditionally this school has a large Asian presence,” said Zhang. “We’re hoping to continue expanding, and we are actively seeking to promote more diverse ethnic and gender representation, especially in our board leadership.”

Following the elections and board announcements, AFAY members began to look toward future programming. A list of member ideas compiled during the general meeting included gatherings for Asian holidays such as Lunar New Year and Diwali, outreach to affinity groups at and beyond Yale and legal support for faculty experiencing discrimination.

Beyond plans for collaboration with University administration and student groups, the AFAY board members also hope to eventually provide support to Asian faculty at other institutions. 

“To summarize our members’ ideas and what is listed on our agenda, our activities are to promote and protect,” said Wang. “So what that looks like is, under the ‘promote’ category, we have community celebrations and trainees. On the other side is to ‘protect’ — when our members are facing injustice due to geopolitical events and racism, we want to be their support.”

A reception to celebrate the establishment of AFAY will be held at the Provost’s House on Oct. 3.

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The new PL program for MENA students is coordinated through the Asian American Cultural Center. The News spoke with the three new AACC-MENA PLs, who will serve until the end of the academic year, about their experiences supporting first years and MENA students’ continued advocacy for a cultural center on campus.

“The whole reason that I applied to be a MENA PL is because I really wish I had a MENA PL my first year, so just the fact that this is happening made me so excited,” Hatami said. “I wasn’t even really considering PL life, but just knowing MENA existed and that there was an opportunity, I knew I had to do it. And it’s been really great, really rewarding.”

The AACC-MENA PL program was first announced on June 21, when Eileen Galvez, dean of La Casa Cultural and the peer liaison program director, sent an email to the student body saying that the AACC would be opening its application process for the AACC-MENA PLs as well as additional PL spots for other cultural centers.

Before the AACC-MENA PL program started this year, there had been just one MENA student serving as an AACC PL for the 2022–23 academic year — Zahra Yarali ’24. She is now a co-head PL at the AACC.

Referring to new renovations and expansions to the MENA Space in the AACC, as well as the growing MENA population at Yale, Galvez wrote in her email that any students “invested in MENA communities” were invited to apply to become an AACC-MENA PL.

For MENA students, Kareem said, the AACC-MENA PL program provides more institutional support and a more permanent, stable support system on campus compared to student-run cultural organizations for MENA students, such as the MENA Students Association. 

“I’ve been a part of the Arab Students Association and MENA [Students Association] at Yale before, but it’s not stable like how a PL is stable,” Kareem said. “As a PL you’re obviously supported by the AACC. You’re supported by Yale, and it’s a paid position. Previously, there were communities available, but it wasn’t sustainable because they’re students and they’re just doing this in their free time. [The PL program] is much more structured.”

On Thursday, Sept. 7, the AACC held its MENA Welcome Mixer in collaboration with the Afro-American Cultural Center, introducing first years to their MENA PLs. 

As the PLs step into their roles for the year, they told the News that their role is a “tangible” step toward more MENA recognition, but they are still advocating for a dedicated cultural center.

“If you look at the history of the groups that have had cultural centers, they have typically been groups that were somehow marginalized in American society at the time,” Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis said. “They’ve been centered around student interests and over time, and they developed into more formal University organizations with staff. Part of it is also having enough students who are interested in and want to participate, and enough people who have that background in the student body to make it work.”

Challenge of finding MENA PLees

MENA students do not have a formal classification at the University, making it difficult for the AACC-MENA PLs to identify MENA students as potential PLees.

Official identification, including the questionnaire on the Common Application platform, does not offer an option for Middle Eastern and North African students, so there is no administrative record of who identifies as MENA.

Because the U.S. Census does not recognize MENA as a unique racial group, the University’s admissions office and Student Information Services do not recognize it either, according to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan. The only racial options for students to select are “white,” “Black,” “American Indian or Alaska Native,” “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.” 

“There is no way on any Yale form to indicate that we are MENA-identifying,” Hatami said. “We usually have to put that we’re white, but obviously most of us don’t identify as being white. We have to go through a lot of different people to get our message to all the first years.”

Because there is no formal way of identifying MENA students, the PLs do not have an official way of finding their potential PLees, unlike other cultural centers PLs, who receive a list of their first years. 

As an AACC PL, Yarali not only advocated for the AACC-MENA PL program but has also been involved in establishing these avenues of communication with MENA first years. 

“Since [FroCo groups] have the ability to have 12-on-one or 14-on-one small family dynamics, it’s a lot easier to convey things like this,” Yarali said. 

To find their first years, the AACC-MENA PLs have gone through several channels of outreach, including first-year counselors, residential college deans and fellow PLs at the AACC and other cultural houses, according to Yarali.

The results, Kareem told the News, have been mixed.

“We have good populations from some colleges and no kids at all from other colleges,” Kareem said. “With Pierson and Morse we have a really good [number of] people, but [in] Davenport or [Timothy Dwight] we have none, so it varies college to college.”

History of advocacy for a MENA cultural center

The MENA community at Yale, which is composed of students from 18 countries across the Middle East and North Africa, has been advocating for a dedicated cultural center and greater recognition from the University since 2018.

Previously, MENA students who requested a PL would receive one from either the Asian American Cultural Center or the Afro-American Cultural Center. Most students with North African heritage were paired with the Af-Am House, while those with Middle Eastern descent were assigned to PLs from the AACC. However, there was little specialized support for MENA students, and MENA utilization of either Af-Am House or AACC PLs was limited, per Yarali.

Several MENA students raised concerns about their community being split between the cultural centers. In a previous conversation with the News, Shady Qubaty ’20 said that MENA students do not fit into either the AACC or the Af-Am House. 

In 2018, a group of MENA students worked with Yale administration to receive a room at 305 Crown St. to host MENA cultural events. MENA students further cemented their physical presence on campus last year when the AACC converted one of its rooms into a MENA meeting space. Over the summer, Galvez said, the AACC expanded and renovated the space. 

There remains significant support among the undergraduate student body for a MENA cultural house. According to a survey done by the Yale College Council in 2018, 75 percent of students supported the establishment of a MENA cultural center. 

Moving forward, a goal of the AACC and MENA staff is to promote inclusivity for more identities.

“I think we definitely want to be more intentional about the AACC space, not only just to celebrate Asian American narratives, but also other narratives,” Mark Chung ’25, co-head AACC PL, said. “It’s important to understand that MENA is an intersectional identity, and there are individuals in the immediate community who identify with Asian America and those who don’t.”

Future plans

The new AACC-MENA PLs said they are planning to potentially expand the AACC-MENA peer liaison program for next year as they take more steps toward establishing a MENA cultural center.

With expansion, the PLs told the News there is a need for more North African representation among the peer liaison class.

“If it were to be expanded, I would like to see more diversity,” Kareem said. “None of us are North African, so I think it’s keeping some North African first years away.”

Lewis told the News that the University is searching for expanded space for student organizations, which could include a building for a MENA cultural center or room within a larger space for student clubs. 

He also said that opening a MENA cultural center, as with all other cultural centers on campus, comes with capital and operating costs for physical renovations, for hiring staff and for disbursing funds to student organizations affiliated with the cultural center. 

“The eventual goal is to have a MENA house, but obviously for now we need to really focus on recruitment,” Maleknia said. “Making sure that even if not every single MENA identifying first year wants to be a part of the community, they should all know that it exists at least at the very least, and that there is a space for them at the AACC.”

First years can request a peer liaison through the University PL page. 

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