Remarks from Yale University President

August 28, 2023

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Peter Salovey, PhD

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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.