This message was sent to faculty, students, and staff on Thursday, January 18.
Dear Members of the University Community,
Vice Provost Dr. Gary Desir and I are pleased to share with you the Belonging at Yale 2023 Annual Report.
In 2023, hundreds of faculty and staff members, students, and alumni demonstrated their expertise and enthusiasm for the work of creating a university environment in which everyone can thrive and contribute to our shared excellence.
As we continue this work, our world and our university community are facing new challenges. Changes to admissions related to the recent Supreme Court decision have required different approaches to ensuring an excellent and diverse student body. In the last year, we have seen a rise in hatred and continued strife involving discrimination in our country.
We are responding to these challenges and investing in actions that are reshaping our environment, including conducting research addressing our historical associations with slavery and identifying university and community investments to address this history. We have deepened our work, with key university partners, to address issues of bias and discrimination, and other barriers to belonging directed especially, in this moment, to Arab, Jewish, Middle East and North African, and Muslim members of our university community.
We have added support for our LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff through learning, advocacy, and community. In 2023 we expanded career pathways for talented rising staff through leadership development programs, and new, expert staff are supporting the success of veterans and active military personnel. Services and learning to increase accessibility, informally resolve disputes, and understand options for addressing discrimination and harassment were also expanded in 2022 to 2023.
The Belonging at Yale 2023 Annual Report tells the stories of our commitment. These stories reflect the guiding principles identified by the President’s Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and endorsed by university leadership in fall 2020 to advance Yale’s vision for a vibrant community life in which each of us encounters and appraises a broad array of ideas, is treated with dignity and respect in an academic environment, and feels welcome to make our voices heard.
The work of creating a welcoming and inclusive community can be challenging, messy, and sometimes even painful, but it is essential. We see progress taking place across the university. Midway through this first five-year plan for Belonging we can celebrate the results we have achieved thus far.
I hope you will review the Belonging at Yale 2023 Annual Report in this spirit, recognizing both how far we have come and how far we still must go—together.
Sincerely,
Kimberly M. Goff-Crews
Secretary and Vice President for University Life