K.D. Codish

Department: Office of Women in Medicine

Years active at Yale: 1980-1986

Dr. Codish is being recognized as the first administrative director and subsequently director of the Office for Women in Medicine. She drafted YSM’s first sexual harassment policies for faculty and convened the schools’ Permanent Committee on the Status of Women. She was a founding member of the Women’s AIDS Coalition as well as director of education and volunteer services at AIDS Project New Haven for many years. She was known for her lifetime commitment to social justice. In 1970, she and two friends founded the Theatre of Light and Shadow, which brought such issues as rape, battering, abortion rights, sexual harassment,and later HIV/AIDS to audiences across the country. She formed the Women’s Self Defense Alliance in the early 1970s and initiated the first of many Women’s Health Weekends and Take Back the Night marches in New Haven. After leaving Yale, Dr. Codish headed the New Haven Police Academy and the police department’s division of training and education. She advised other police departments on recruiting and retaining women and people of color. She encouraged the department to develop a new breed of community-based police officers and switch from a military to a problem-solving philosophy. Her department was considered a model across the country. The National Center for Women and Policing presented her with an innovative policing award, and in 1985, she won the Elm Ivy Award, which honors people whose efforts support the collaboration of the university and its hometown.