Zach Marks
Zach Marks
Recent Stories
Marks: Jones proposes comprehensive reforms
In my four years at Yale, I have been involved in policymaking both within Yale, through the Yale College Council, and in New Haven, through the Roosevelt Institution. As such, I have been interested in how the Ward 1 aldermanic candidates propose to use their position as Yale students to effect positive change in the city.
Deep-Fried Post-Election Glory with the new Taber
Rich Tao could not be convinced to make his first appearance at the Toad as YCC President, even despite the promise of scantily-clad Berzelius taps handing out milk and cookies. Instead, Tao went to his favorite booth at Yorkside with his new secretary, Jasper Wang. I’m not one to turn down a free chicken wing or two, so I held court with them and basked in the deep-fried post-election glory that eluded me last year. News of Tao and Wang’s victory had only hit the street two hours earlier, but it was already obvious I was rolling with celebs. People in line for pizza whispered and pointed. Waitresses brought us free milkshakes. The guy from Ivygate who valiantly attempted to Before long, three of Tao and Wang’s friends piled in the booth and suddenly, as one of them pointed out, I was the token white guy. The friends – Hans, Yuen and James – had mostly encouraging things to say, remarking on the quality and quantity of the e-mails sent on Rich’s behalf. “[Ethnic Counselor] Funmi’s [Showole] was amazing,” Hans said, “and the Dwight Hall…that’s like the most legit endorsement you can get.” Take that YDN. By the way, first year in a while the YDN picked the whole slate (except UOFC chair…I keep acting like that race didn’t happen. Go BT!). After letting Hans’ comment sink in, James chimed in, “I didn’t hear anything about you Jasper.” “I won by 30 percent,” Jasper retorted. Man’s got a point. I mentioned that Abby Cheung had run an impressively aggressive campaign for a freshman, but Yuen interrupted: “No man. Jon Wu. That kid was everywhere. Yes Wu Can. Wu Hoo…” Jasper might not remember saying this: “A lot of people hate on Jon Wu. I’m just gonna let the haters hate.” He continued, “Rich, I’m gonna hate on you on JuicyCampus.” Rich responded, “I’m gonna hate on you back. It’s anonymous so it’s all good, baby baby.” And if you don’t know, now you know. Eventually, I had to depart to do a problem set, which apparently reminded Jasper that he had a Chinese presentation in less than nine hours worth 40 percent of his grade that he hadn’t started. He brushed that dirt off his shoulder: “Think I’ll go play Super Smash Brothers.”
Tao, Schofield, Wang, Wu, Leatherbury Take YCC Posts
Your new YCC E-board: President Rich Tao Vice-President Emily Schofield Secretary Jasper Wang Treasurer Jon Wu YSAC Chair Colin Leatherbury UOFC Chair Bryan Twarek
Liveblogging the Election Returns
By Zach Marks
Bursar at Toad's? A Campus Cash vet weighs in
By Zach Marks In my
Bank of America Presents Spring Fling: A modest proposal from YSAC candidates...and a modest proposal of my own
By Zach Marks In a year of such hotly contested YCC elections, namely a fierce presidential race between three candidates with an exceptional number of Facebook friends, I’ve been a bit surprised to find my inbox being filled with more plugs for YSAC candidates than for any other position. Feels like every other e-mail is telling me why Colin Leatherbury is so hot right now - he got today's YDN endorsement - or why Jon Terenzetti deserves to be the shortest male to ever serve on the e-board. Leatherbury and Terenzetti are the insiders of this race: Leatherbury was Spring Fling co-chair and Terenzetti served as a YSAC representative from Davenport. But the two outsiders deserve major attention too. Kristian Henderson’s resume impresses me more than any candidate in this race. Leatherbury got Sean Kingston, The Roots and Jimmy Eat World to come for Spring Fling, but Henderson got The other outsider of the race, Travis Long, is also worth checking out if for no other reason than his ridiculous rhetoric: This idea of bringing in outside funding for YSAC activities has been voiced by some of Long’s opponents as well. Prob is, according to YCC President Rebecca Taber, there isn’t all that much outside funding knocking to come in. Apparently YSAC tried to sell out this year, but there just isn’t that much interest in the corporate world for the naming rights to Spring Fling. You could probably get Red Bull to throw cans into the crowd or maybe even set up a Jaeger bomb station, but Wachovia’s not gonna subsidize Jay-Z just for the prospect of opening a few checking accounts. Anyway, this should be an interesting race to watch, with each candidate’s base of support in different circles on campus. Jon Terenzetti’s Facebook group is in the lead with 82 members, followed by Travis Long’s which has 72, Kristian Henderson’s 69 and Colin Leatherbury’s 33, a surprisingly low showing for the race’s closest thing to an incumbent. Then again, Taber didn’t even make a Facebook group last year and she kicked my ass. Bring back Lupe! I'm sure Travis has had some ridiculous internships and met crazy i-bankers, but his "track record on Wall Street" will not get artists to lower their fees. Jay-Z will never feel "generous" enough to give a show at Yale for $75,000. Ooo, another update: Kristian Henderson just added me as a friend. OMG should I accept? Too soon? Should I wait? I should wait. I can't wait! OMG!
That's a No-No, Abby: Our first violation of the season
By Zach Marks No more than a few hours of voting had passed before reports of the election's first violation started trickling in. Yalies in (at least) the Davenport and Silliman dining halls with an appetite for some news with their grass-fed burgers found Abigail Cheung for Secretary stickers on the front of their YDNs. Friends of Cheung's opponent Jasper Wang and clean election advocates naturally responded by snitching to employees working the ID swipe stations. “This some bullshit,” one student was heard yelling. “True, true,” the ID swiper responded before dumping all the YDNs tarnished with the Cheung sticker in the recycling. Cheung will undoubtedly suffer some bad publicity for her violation. But the tactic may have helped her in the short run: her stickers resulted in the mass trashing of YDNs, causing many Yalies to miss today’s This isn’t the first complaint about Cheung’s campaign. One of the most talked-about tactics of this election has been Cheung’s distribution of CDs with hit songs that she encouraged Yalies to rip and return. She wrote me an e-mail this morning defending the practice: Cheung was referring to Ryan Russell’s mention of the CDs (which he claimed he loved…but who doesn’t love NOW! That’s What I Call Music mixes?). They may be legit under YCC election law, but it’s understandable that some are questioning the ethics of using pirated music for self-promotion. Abby, you’re not the first to get hit by the long arm of the law and you won’t be the last. But dirty politics gets you put on blast.
Where there's a Will, there's a sick dude. Siiiiiiick.
By Zach Marks I’ve been showing YCC Treasurer candidate Jon Wu love on the blog the past few days, but his opponent, Will Alexander, deserves it too. His campaign theme – “Where there's a Will, there's a sick dude” – isn’t quite as sick as “Yes Wu Can,” but it still registers a significant reading on the sickness scale. I’ll talk policy later, but for now, the story behind the slogan, in Alexander’s words: I’m not on a sports team or in a fraternity, and I love the slogan. That said, it really does shed some insight to who makes up Alexander’s base. I’m a big fan of Alexander’s candidacy because of the background he brings to the YCC. He plays rugby and he’s in DKE. His Facebook group is mostly sick dudes and DKE all-star Zach DeWitt was the first to post a message on the group’s wall. And there’s this: Wu has certainly amassed an impressive track record in his first year at Yale, serving as Vice Chair and now Chair of the Freshman Class Council and as Saybrook’s YCC Representative. On his But with an extra year at Yale under his belt, Alexander is the more experienced candidate. He served on the FCC last year including holding it down as Activities Chair during the spring, which means he organized the Freshman Olympics and the inaugural End-of-the-Year Freshman Address. He’s been a dedicated YCC Rep this year, working on “reforming freshman advising so that freshmen are advised by their seminar teachers, establishing the DVD library in Bass, pushing for an extended hours pilot program in Bass this reading week, and bringing the MTVu channel to Yale.” Both candidates have some interesting ideas for what to do with the treasurer spot. Alexander wants to issue a Student Activities Fee distribution survey to allow students to determine how much cash different student government organizations get. He wants to expand the Student Development Directive and publicize budget moves on a “Treasurer’s Corner” on the YCC website. Wu also wants to make the YCC budget public, although he doesn’t say specifically how he’d do so. Whereas Alexander wants to incorporate student input through surveys, Wu proposes holding focus groups, “which give more complete feedback than surveys.” I can tell you right now, Jon, you’re gonna have a tough time getting folks to come to these focus groups even if you bribe them with free food. Wu wants to “bring back the sustainability competition among colleges.” I didn’t realize the competition had ended, with all the “Push the 15” buttons I keep seeing, but if Wu’s right, it’s a fine idea (although maybe more a job for STEP than the YCC treasurer). Wu also promises to bring Campus Cash to Yale. This is like the “No New Taxes” of YCC elections. Candidates promise it every year but WTF? We still don’t have it. Not sure what he’d do about it that Alexander wouldn’t. Shame Will didn’t take advantage of this populist issue and put it on his platform too. Or maybe it’s a sign of mature restraint not to go promising things you’re not sure you’ll be able to keep. This will be an interesting horserace to watch. Wu has tons of energy and a strong freshman following. Alexander will be in a good place if he can turn out frats, sororities and athletes, but that’s a big if, and his Facebook group is down 61 members to J. Wu’s (191-130). Alexander will get a nice push from the fact that most of the candidates, including all three presidential hopefuls, are sophomores so 2010 will have high turnout. He can also expect lots of votes in his home turf of TD, which will get a lot of GOTV attention from collegemates Harrison Marks, going for president, and Abigail Cheung, running for secretary. Ryan Russell gave J. Wu 2:1 odds and Will 3:1. I’d say that’s about right. Siiiiiiiiiiick.
Election 2.0: YCC Campaigns Go Digital
By Zach Marks As of 8 p.m. Sunday night, Each of the candidates’ sites do some things better than those of their opponents. Marks’ features some sweet pics and a forum for visitors, but you have to register to participate, which pretty much renders it useless. Katrina Landeta welcomes visitors to Marks and Landeta have created informative sites, but The parallels between Wu and Tao go a step further. Just as “Yes Wu Can” established Wu as the Obama of his race, Tao’s website has done the same in his. Tao's "Come Together" is arguably a better choice for a theme song than Obama's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," given Yale's demographics. Tao's site's red, white and blue theme just feels a bit more presidential than the neon green thing Marks has going on. Plus, the fact that Tao bought All three sites offer some interesting bio information – Katrina always wishes at 11:11…OMG ME TOO!! – but the hidden gem of these three sites is the picture of a scrawny high school Rich Tao rockin a Troy basketball tee.
Getting Out the Freshman Vote
By Zach Marks It’s no secret. If you want to win a YCC election, you need to do well with freshmen. They consistently turn out in higher numbers than upperclassmen – last year 33% of voters were freshmen, compared to 30% who were sophomores, 22% juniors and 15% seniors. Since freshmen are less likely than their older peers to write off the elections as a time for resume padding, they also get more involved with the campaigns – sending e-mails to friends, canvassing entryways and helping make So candidates are setting up shop on Old Campus for today’s Freshman Olympics, pretending like they’re just here to relive their wonder years as freshmen and then handing out campaign stickers when I’m not watching. I see you, Will Alexander. Your stickers are practically a part of the TD uniform. Unfortunately, your opponent in the race for treasurer Jon Wu’s stickers seem to be a part of all the other 11 colleges’ uniforms. Those “Yes Wu Can” stickers are hard to miss - Wu’s boldface white type on a black background was probably a better choice than Alexander’s Times New Roman 12 pt. on a transparent sticker. To Alexander’s credit, his travel to Old Campus seems as much for pleasure as for business – he’s lining up to participate in the “Funny Relay” (whatever that is) with his boys from last year’s Freshman Class Council, presidential candidate Rich Tao and secretary hopeful Jasper Wang. Oh, hold up. Harrison Marks sighting. 2:34 p.m. Walking from the water balloon toss to the dodgeball arena. Could this be symbolic of the shift in tone we should expect from his campaign? We’ll see tonight when he and the rest of the field invade the freshman entryways for their last chance to reach out to voters before polls open tomorrow Morning.