President Salovey: The Year at Yale 2013-2014

View our Year-in-review Video: The Year at Yale 2013–2014

Dear Yale Faculty, Students, Staff, Alumni, Parents, and Friends,

Even as we are gearing up for a new academic year, I had the opportunity to look back on my first year as president of this extraordinary and inspiring institution. I am grateful for what we have achieved and enthusiastic about the future.

It was a year for celebrating accomplishments of many varieties—so many, in fact, that it would be impossible for me to mention them all.

But among the highlights: waking up very early on an October morning—not once but twice—to the news that members of our faculty had been awarded Nobel Prizes. Jim Rothman ’71, the Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences, and professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology, was co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; and Bob Shiller, Sterling Professor of Economics, was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. In November, we recognized seven students and recent graduates who were awarded Rhodes and Marshall scholarships this year. These recognitions and awards signify Yale’s strong and continuing intellectual impact, and our constant focus on the highest possible scholarly achievement.

Another highlight: watching two of our graduates, Lupita Nyong’o ’12 M.F.A. and Robert Lopez ’97, each receive Academy Awards this year. Yale had five alumni among this year’s nominees. It was a special treat to hear Lupita’s “shout outs” to the Yale School of Drama and to her classmates. And it was a special honor for Robert, who is only the twelfth person, and the youngest person ever, to achieve a sweep of the top creative awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. And speaking of Tonys, Yale was well-represented among the nominees and winners, with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater going to Jane Greenwood, a faculty member at the Yale School of Drama.

There were other opportunities for celebration, as well. In September, we announced a historic gift of $250 million to Yale—the largest gift the university has ever received, contributed in Rick Levin’s final year as president—from Charlie Johnson ’54 for the construction of two new residential colleges. And by June, many generous alumni used the occasions of their class reunions to pledge the final amounts needed to ensure that construction of the two colleges can commence this winter. The new residential colleges, which represent the first major expansion of Yale College since co-education began in 1969, will allow the addition of 200 students in each Yale College class beginning in 2017-18. This expansion was first championed by Rick, who worked tirelessly to make it possible for even more undergraduates to have access to the unique intellectual and social communities that our residential colleges provide. Charlie, Rick, and the many other alumni and friends who have contributed to this project deserve our thanks.

The Yale Law School, too, received good news, with the announcement of a $25 million gift from Christina and Robert Baker ’56, ’59 LL.B. to support the renovation of the current “swing dorm” at 100 Tower Parkway into a revitalized residential community for law students. And our intellectual community will soon be able to experience the benefits of a multi-year renovation and restoration of the great nave of the Sterling Memorial Library, made possible by a $20 million gift from Richard Gilder ’54 and his wife, Lois Chiles, in honor of Rick and Jane Levin. This historic library space, both literally and figuratively at the heart of our university, will once again welcome scholars and visitors from all over the world.

Two other professional schools celebrated new campuses in the past year. In January, the Yale School of Management opened the doors to the new Evans Hall, a spectacular new Foster and Partners-designed building on Whitney Avenue. And the Yale School of Nursing, which celebrated its 90th anniversary last year, dedicated its new home on Yale’s West Campus in October. The nursing school’s relocation has injected new vitality to the already thriving research communities that Yale has established on the West Campus.

Nursing was not the only school to take up residence on the West Campus this year. When Peck Place School, an elementary school in Orange, Connecticut, was forced to close in late December due to water damage from burst pipes and the subsequent discovery of asbestos, Yale provided alternative space for the entire school. The students will return to their school building next year, but in June, I was honored to join several of my colleagues at Yale’s first sixth-grade graduation.

The support Yale provided to the students and teachers of Peck Place School is but one example of the ways in which Yale demonstrates its commitment to our home communities. 2014 marked the 20th anniversary of the Yale Homebuyer Program, which has helped over 1,000 Yale faculty and staff members purchase homes in New Haven. And just last month, we celebrated the first anniversary of New Haven Works, a partnership organization that has placed more than 300 individuals in jobs in New Haven, including jobs at Yale. New Haven’s renaissance has made Yale stronger. Yale’s positive relationship with our hometown will always be one of my priorities, and I am grateful that the city’s new mayor, Toni Harp ’78 M.Env.D., shares this outlook and is such a great partner.

In our galleries and museums this year, we welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors, mostly free of charge. Thousands also enjoyed our dramatic and musical performances. We marked the 40th anniversary of the Institute of Sacred Music and the inaugural festival commemorating the Windham-Campbell Literary Prizes. We celebrated sustainability and launched a new sustainability strategic plan for the campus. We feted the 10th anniversary of the Yale Sustainable Food Project. We searched for “Egyptian Blue” and we printed human knees and we found new galaxies. We also hacked.

Yale student-athletes had many good causes for celebration this year, especially members of the women’s volleyball team, who wrapped up an extraordinary season in March with a fourth-straight Ivy League title, a 20-win season, five All-Ivy selections, and a record-setting 23rd consecutive conference victory. In addition, the men’s ice hockey team had the opportunity to do something Bulldog teams haven’t done for 44 years—play Harvard in Madison Square Garden—during the Rivalry on Ice in January. (Yale won, of course.) But one of the biggest triumphs took place outside the field of competition, when the Yale student-athlete-run Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive in April added 686 more people to the Be The Match Registry®, for a total of 4,538 registrants (and at least 23 donor matches) over the past six years.

And even as we celebrated our achievements this past year, we continued to ask important questions, in keeping with our research and educational missions. Some of these questions were unquantifiable, like “Why do we make music?” Some of these questions were applied, like “Can a drug developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis be used to treat other diseases?” Some of these questions were especially urgent, like “Can we eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission in Ghana?” Some of these questions reflect the scholarship of the most fundamental kind, like “What we in the 21st century can learn from 18th-century scholar Jonathan Edwards?” “What do the many faces of Alexander Pope reveal?” “Where does the missing proton go in H2O?” Or “How we know the Antarctic was once as hot as California?” Some of these questions were more practical, such as “How do we make college accessible and affordable for all?” This latter question is one of great importance to me, and I was honored to take part in the White House Summit on College Opportunity in January. Yale was singled out twice at the summit for our current accessibility efforts, and we will continue to emphasize our programs and outreach in this area.

The past year marked important transitions for the university, not the least of which was my transition to a new role. In October, the entire campus celebrated with a week of events and activities prior to the presidential inauguration ceremony itself, and the inauguration culminated in a block party on Hillhouse Avenue open to all members of the Yale and New Haven communities. It was tremendously important to Marta and me that the inauguration observances be welcoming to all, and the team that worked to put together the events worked tirelessly to make that so.

In other transitions, Mary Miller and Tom Pollard stepped away from their deanships (of the college and the graduate school, respectively) to return to research and teaching. Mary and Tom have been incisive administrators, tireless advocates for their students, and invaluable sources of support to me in my first year as president. I am deeply thankful for their service.

The anticipated transition of these two deans presented a unique opportunity for us to examine the governance structures of not only Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, but also the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). Up until this year, Yale was one of the few universities that had no dean whose specific role was to oversee and support that faculty; those duties were instead shared by the dean of Yale College, the dean the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of the Provost. After careful study by a faculty committee, the FAS recommended that Yale establish a new position of dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In May, we announced the three new deans, and I am looking forward to working with Lynn Cooley, Tamar Gendler ’87, and Jonathan Holloway ’95 Ph.D. within this new administrative structure. The new decanal structure shifts certain administrative responsibilities so that the Office of the Provost can now focus more fully on issues relating to strategic and long-term planning for the entire university.

Of course, Provost Ben Polak also remains the chief budget officer, working closely with Shauna King, the vice president for finance and business operations. I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress in reducing our operating budget gap, so that even though we still have a few more tight years ahead, we are projecting a balanced budget by 2015-16. If we adhere to our budget plans, we can expect small budget surpluses in the years following, which will be available to fund new initiatives in priority areas especially focused on our core missions of research and teaching, along with new projects such as entrepreneurship, economic and campus development, technology, and the arts.

This optimistic financial forecast would not be possible without a number of key contributors. I must thank the faculty and staff who have worked so diligently this year to identify areas of cost savings. I must recognize David Swensen and the members of the Yale Investments Office who expect to report robust returns and an all-time high endowment value this fiscal year. Finally, I must thank so many of you who helped us exceed our fundraising goal by over $100 million this year (we received more than $500 million in new pledges). The support I have received from the Yale community in my first year as president has been gratifying and deeply appreciated.

As I said at the beginning of this note, it would be impossible for me to describe all of the remarkable things that have happened at Yale in the last twelve months. But I hope this message has provided a sense of energy and optimism that I hope you share about our great university. I encourage you to stay involved and connected through YaleNews and our social media channels for up-to-the-minute information about Yale and the many ways in which we are advancing knowledge, nurturing creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, building partnerships, practicing citizenship and service, and inspiring minds that inspire the world.

With warm wishes,