Remarks from Yale University President

Transcript

• 00:02It's great to see you all here.
• 00:04I actually am a little bit more in this
• 00:08world than my bio may make it sound.
• 00:10I have a courtesy appointment in the
• 00:12School of Epidemiology and Public health,
• 00:14School of Public Health,
• 00:16and a big piece of the research that used
• 00:18to be done in my lab and I say used to
• 00:20close the lab when I became president,
• 00:22concerned how to make,
• 00:24how to motivate health behaviors.
• 00:26So we worked in cancer.
• 00:27We worked in HIV AIDS primarily,
• 00:30and we did laboratory work.
• 00:32We also did field experiments where
• 00:35we would randomly assign whole
• 00:37neighborhoods to multimedia campaigns
• 00:39around using sunscreen or eating fruits
• 00:42and vegetables or using a condom
• 00:45when you have sex or what have you,
• 00:48and actually use some psychological
• 00:50principles to design those campaigns.
• 00:53And then.
• 00:56And then follow them,
• 00:57follow individuals for a couple
• 00:59of years and actually measure
• 01:01changes in behavior which is was
• 01:03fun to think about how to do that.
• 01:06It was the work was funded by
• 01:09National Cancer Institute and I.
• 01:10So I wrote all ones for the 1st 25
• 01:13years of my career and it's all you know,
• 01:16not you. Many of you are doing
• 01:17all kinds of different things,
• 01:18but for those of you who are
• 01:20running research laboratories,
• 01:21that was that was my life for
• 01:25first half of my my career here,
• 01:28I look around and I'm delighted
• 01:31to see more diversity than we
• 01:34used to see in in entering cohorts
• 01:37of faculty and that's a good,
• 01:41that's a very, very good thing.
• 01:44Universitywide,
• 01:45I think last year,
• 01:48I think 2728% of offers that
• 01:51were made of offers that were
• 01:53accepted were from members of
• 01:56underrepresented groups here at Yale.
• 01:58And that that that represents
• 02:00improvement to you know the best,
• 02:02the best groups including the best
• 02:05faculty are ones where we represented
• 02:08diversity of viewpoints from all,
• 02:10you know,
• 02:11and I mean diversity in all different ways,
• 02:12the obvious ones ethnicity and and gender
• 02:15and and and back you know family background,
• 02:17but all kinds of other ways
• 02:19to sexual orientation,
• 02:23economic background,
• 02:24even political viewpoints all all
• 02:29contribute to our to our excellence.
• 02:33We're at a time in the university
• 02:35when we are expanding where
• 02:37we're building new facilities and
• 02:40believe me on this side of campus,
• 02:41I know the need for all of that.
• 02:45But it is an exciting time.
• 02:46It's a historic time and let me just
• 02:49give you a just a few ways in which
• 02:51we're building primarily on Yale's strengths,
• 02:53historic strengths,
• 02:54but and building them to preeminence.
• 02:58So we have initiatives in science
• 03:01and engineering as you heard,
• 03:02we have initiatives in data
• 03:04based social science,
• 03:06particularly if it has policy relevance.
• 03:08We have initiatives in the Arts and
• 03:10Sciences and we're providing more
• 03:12support for faculty and students.
• 03:14I don't have time to give you
• 03:15the hour long talk on this,
• 03:17but I'll give you the four
• 03:18minute version of it since you
• 03:21are probably getting hungry.
• 03:22In sciences and engineering we
• 03:25had a wonderful committee that
• 03:27identified the areas in which Yale,
• 03:31Yale should invest.
• 03:32And the criteria was where are we
• 03:35already strong but where is also
• 03:38the world ready to have Yale make a
• 03:40difference where we could what can
• 03:42we have impact And they identified
• 03:44data science and computer science.
• 03:46We have huge expansion going on there.
• 03:49Why?
• 03:49The data scientists will be in the
• 03:51Klein Tower up on the North End of
• 03:53campus at the top of Science Hill,
• 03:55which is now open.
• 03:56We've renovated, it's now open.
• 03:57The 14th floor is one of the
• 04:00great views of all of New Haven.
• 04:02Second area is neuroscience.
• 04:04My department psychology moved to
• 04:06100 College St. the Alexion building.
• 04:10Below us is the Woodside Institute
• 04:13which mostly focuses on neuroscience
• 04:16approach to
• 04:17human cognition and below that is
• 04:20the department of Neuroscience from
• 04:21the medical school, lots of shared
• 04:26imaging equipment and and the like.
• 04:313rd area is inflammation science that's
• 04:33building on the great immunobiology
• 04:35that goes on over here on this side of
• 04:38campus and working on inflammation in
• 04:41particular as a kind of new disease model.
• 04:46Really planetary solutions is what we
• 04:49call climate change and the response
• 04:52to it also biodiversity in the
• 04:54response loss and the response to it.
• 04:56University wide projects going
• 04:58on in that area.
• 05:00And then finally quantum science,
• 05:02quantum engineering, quantum materials,
• 05:04maybe the first quantum computer
• 05:06will be built at Yale.
• 05:07We have real faculty strength in that,
• 05:10in that area.
• 05:13I can elaborate on all of that.
• 05:16But what's wonderful is in many
• 05:17of the areas that particularly
• 05:19affect medical school directly,
• 05:21neuroscience, inflammation,
• 05:22you can see some synergies.
• 05:25So the medical system is building
• 05:27a new wing of the hospital on the
• 05:31Saint Ray's campus focused on
• 05:34neurodegenerative diseases, right.
• 05:35So there's,
• 05:37there's some synergy there as
• 05:40as well in inflammation.
• 05:42The School of Medicine just announced the
• 05:45new Center for Infection and Immunity.
• 05:48There's contributions from molecular biology,
• 05:51there's contributions from machine
• 05:54learning and obviously from immunology.
• 05:57So again,
• 05:58you can already start to feel the
• 06:02changes that we're making just very
• 06:07quickly in other science priorities.
• 06:09We now have a new
• 06:14plan for a School of Engineering
• 06:17campus and an expansion by 30%
• 06:19of our engineering faculty.
• 06:21As I said, all of our data scientists
• 06:23are now in Kline Biology Tower,
• 06:26except those affiliated with Biostat
• 06:29in the School of Public Health or the
• 06:32new informatics group here in medicine.
• 06:36Most of them are in Kline Tower. The
• 06:42What else can I mention?
• 06:43The the Jackson School of Global
• 06:46Affairs has a huge commitment
• 06:48to database public policy in the
• 06:52international arena and the Tobin Center.
• 06:54These are all new programs.
• 06:56The Tobin Center is a a group that
• 07:01brings public policy issues to the
• 07:03attention of data-driven economists,
• 07:05political scientists,
• 07:06little bit public health
• 07:09and psychology as well.
• 07:10So I think you get,
• 07:12you get the general idea,
• 07:13lots of fields we're investing in our areas
• 07:18where we can have impact on the world,
• 07:21that build on yield strengths and
• 07:25that generally are data-driven and
• 07:27generally are multidisciplinary.
• 07:29And those are kind of the
• 07:31overarching themes and strategy
• 07:33for the arts and humanities.
• 07:35Yale has always been very strong
• 07:36in the arts and humanities.
• 07:37And I.
• 07:38And you're going to discover that
• 07:39because we have great theater in town,
• 07:41great music in town,
• 07:43the world's best Art Museum
• 07:45on a university campus.
• 07:47The Center for British Art will reopen
• 07:50in December after we fix the roof.
• 07:52And other collections like
• 07:54the libraries and the Peabody
• 07:56Museum of Fantastic Peabody will
• 07:58reopen this winter as well.
• 08:00And
• 08:03but we moved all the humanities
• 08:05faculty to a quadrangle built on York
• 08:08Street over behind Sterling Library.
• 08:10And now three quarters 2/3 to 3/4 of the
• 08:14humanities faculty are all together.
• 08:16And so the language and literature faculty
• 08:19influence the historians and vice versa.
• 08:22You know, whether you study French
• 08:24literature, Spanish literature,
• 08:26Italian literature, Slavic literature,
• 08:29East Asian literature,
• 08:30you can now find each other.
• 08:31You those used to be separate buildings,
• 08:33separate parts of campus.
• 08:35There wasn't much crosstalk.
• 08:36So again,
• 08:37bringing people together across disciplines,
• 08:40that's the way we try to organize space.
• 08:43Now at at Yale, I finished,
• 08:46I I when I was listening off
• 08:48all the things we're doing,
• 08:49I mentioned that we're trying to build
• 08:52resources for faculty and students,
• 08:54for faculty.
• 08:55Obviously we're trying,
• 08:57we're trying to support our faculty
• 09:00financially even better than we already do.
• 09:02So we're building, we're in a campaign to
• 09:05raise money for endowed professorships,
• 09:07for lab funds and the like.
• 09:11We have a $7 billion goal in that campaign.
• 09:14We've raised 5 billion of it
• 09:15and we have three more years.
• 09:17So that's going very well as long as
• 09:20the endowment holds up over time.
• 09:23We had a + 40% year a couple years ago,
• 09:25but the most recent years have
• 09:26been like plus one or two percent.
• 09:28Markets are pretty moving sideways more
• 09:30than they're moving up, but we'll see.
• 09:34Maybe this next year is going
• 09:36to show better return.
• 09:39The. But the other thing we're
• 09:42doing in supporting faculty and
• 09:44students is focused on students.
• 09:46And that is, how can we make sure that
• 09:49students are able to come to Yale and
• 09:52pursue whatever it is they want to
• 09:54pursue and not be burdened with so much
• 09:56debt that they then have constraints on
• 09:58their career choices that they want to make?
• 10:01In Yale College,
• 10:02where our undergraduates are,
• 10:04we have essentially eliminated debt.
• 10:06So you hear a lot about the student
• 10:08debt problem for undergraduates.
• 10:09There's no student debt for
• 10:11undergraduates at Yale, right.
• 10:13That's a great thing.
• 10:16But for medical students,
• 10:17there's still student debt.
• 10:19It's lower than it used to be.
• 10:21The amount you have to borrow is now
• 10:23considerably lower than the average
• 10:25medical school in the country by a lot.
• 10:28But in nursing and public health,
• 10:30that is still kind of high.
• 10:31Those are the two highest Nurses
• 10:34graduate with $120,000 of debt.
• 10:37That's not a good,
• 10:38that's not a good situation.
• 10:39So we are matching gifts to the endowments
• 10:44of the school of public health,
• 10:45the School of Nursing and the
• 10:48medical school for $50 million each.
• 10:52And most of it focused on the educational
• 10:55mission of those of those schools.
• 10:56It's a little different in
• 10:57each one of those schools,
• 10:58but the ideas we're trying to leverage
• 11:00giving to those schools in part to bring,
• 11:03to continue to bring debt down.
• 11:07I think the last thing I want to say,
• 11:09two last things.
• 11:10The second last thing I think I want
• 11:12to say is I've been at Yale 42 years.
• 11:14I came as a graduate student in psychology.
• 11:16I was an intern psychology
• 11:18intern at the VA hospital.
• 11:20So those of you who are at the VAI was there
• 11:23as a health psychologist really for a year.
• 11:25And and then I've been,
• 11:27I was on the faculty,
• 11:28I still on the faculty now for 37 years.
• 11:31And I've had these various been
• 11:33privileged out of these leadership roles.
• 11:35That was never my goal.
• 11:37My goal was to teach introductory psychology
• 11:39and teach about emotions and run a lab.
• 11:42And that was true for about 20 years,
• 11:44but then moved into administration.
• 11:47And I have never seen in all of those years,
• 11:50those 37 years,
• 11:51better alignment between the medical
• 11:53school and the rest of campus and between
• 11:57the medical school and the health system.
• 12:00And we have more to do there.
• 12:02But this is a project that
• 12:04we're all working on.
• 12:06How do we make sure that our medical system
• 12:09is the kind of medical system we need
• 12:13for an academic environment and a great,
• 12:17great medical school such as this one.
• 12:21So working on that right now and the new CEO,
• 12:24Chris O'Connor is very much on the
• 12:29same page as as the university,
• 12:31which is a very good thing.
• 12:33The last thing I wanted to say,
• 12:35I am keeping track.
• 12:38You know, when lunch awakes, you know,
• 12:40you can't say the last thing four times.
• 12:43The last thing I will say is that how many
• 12:45of you are not from New Haven, right?
• 12:47Most of you. I wasn't either.
• 12:49I grew up in New Jersey,
• 12:50everybody from New Jersey.
• 12:52Anybody know where New
• 12:54Providence is in Union County?
• 12:56Anybody from New Providence my dad worked at?
• 12:59You're from New Providence.
• 13:00Your husband is from New Providence.
• 13:03I grew up in New Jersey.
• 13:04My dad worked for Bell Labs.
• 13:05He was a chemist.
• 13:06And then that was then in
• 13:08teenage years I was in Buffalo,
• 13:10NY Anybody from Buffalo
• 13:13usually see less from Buffalo.
• 13:16And then I went to Stanford for
• 13:19college and my family actually I
• 13:21moved to LA by then and state of
• 13:24California worked for a year before
• 13:26coming here for Graduate School.
• 13:27So I came here from the Bay Area
• 13:30and my thought was I'll be going
• 13:32right back to the Bay Area.
• 13:34You know,
• 13:35in those days it was more livable than
• 13:37it is right now actually in my opinion.
• 13:39But the the the that was what
• 13:41I thought I would do.
• 13:43And I fell in love with New Haven.
• 13:45And New Haven got better and better
• 13:48every year I've been here in 42 years.
• 13:51And the growth of this city,
• 13:53the economic growth of this city,
• 13:55the new biotech community that's here,
• 13:57the restaurant scene that has sprung
• 13:59up about that around that all the
• 14:02culture where the cultural capital
• 14:05really we say of of southern New England.
• 14:08But but there's an awful lot of culture here.
• 14:11And and the restaurants that I say,
• 14:13the restaurants,
• 14:14the food scene is really quite
• 14:15good at a fraction of what it
• 14:17costs in Boston or New York.
• 14:19Although it is more expensive than it
• 14:21used to be, the trucks on Cedar St.
• 14:23notwithstanding.
• 14:26Anyway, it it really turns out to be a great
• 14:29place to live and the lifestyle choices,
• 14:31you know live in town, live on the shoreline,
• 14:33live in in in the woods,
• 14:36you know are are are nice.
• 14:38And I hope, I hope you'll actually,
• 14:40I know you're all going to be
• 14:41incredibly busy but take some time
• 14:43to try to get to know New Haven.
• 14:45Try to take some time to immerse
• 14:47yourself in the community.
• 14:48Do something in the community,
• 14:51whether it's at, you know,
• 14:53one of our federally qualified clinics,
• 14:54if you're if you're clinician,
• 14:56or whether it's some other
• 14:58kind of volunteer work.
• 15:00Science in the school,
• 15:02science for the scientists we have science
• 15:05Saturdays for school children in New Haven.
• 15:07All kinds of ways to get
• 15:08involved in the community.
• 15:09It's a fascinating community.
• 15:11It's a community of incredible diversity,
• 15:14economically, ethnically.
• 15:15And I think you're going to love living
• 15:19here if you if you were skeptical and if
• 15:23you weren't skeptical, more power to you.
• 15:27That's a that's a good that that
• 15:29that represents a good shift.
• 15:30So enjoy it.
• 15:31Enjoy being at Yale.
• 15:32Enjoy the whole campus,
• 15:33which is really not just the medical school.
• 15:36The whole campus is yours to enjoy,
• 15:38but also enjoyed living in this
• 15:40part of the country and a great,
• 15:42vibrant,
• 15:42growing,
• 15:43changing city undergoing an
• 15:45incredible renaissance right here.
• 15:47And you're in the middle.
• 15:49You're in the middle of it.
• 15:50Thank you for making the decision to
• 15:53come to Yale and be on our faculty.
• 15:55Thanks so much.