Our Commitment to Fostering and Maintaining an Inclusive Community

The Yale School of the Environment is dedicated to engaging with and recruiting individuals with multifaceted perspectives and experiences to aid in the cultivation of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community who are striving to create a sustainable future for all people and the planet.  Our student, faculty, and staff community has become increasingly diverse over the past 5 years, in all dimensions, and we aspire to continue on this path. Solutions to environmental challenges must be driven by the ideas and needs of people from all communities, and particularly those who have not traditionally been represented in environmental fields. 

Dimensions of Diversity

• Our pioneering curriculum addresses environmental challenges at multiple scales — from local to global, urban to rural, and managed to wild — to equip our students to become 21^st century leaders.  We understand that effective leadership has at its core the ability to listen to, understand, and engage constructively with individuals representing many points of view and backgrounds. 
• The 2024 incoming master’s cohort comprised students from 31 U.S. states and territories and 23 countries around the world.
• YSE’s financial aid policies and program are designed to make it possible for students to pursue an environmental education regardless of their financial circumstances. Yale was the first American university to combine a need-blind admissions policy with a need-based scholarship award system that extends to students without regard to citizenship or immigration status. 
• YSE is proud of its strong commitment to equal opportunity and accessibility to all candidates from any part of the world who show great academic and personal promise related to solving complex environmental challenges. 
• Yale’s cultural organizations and resource centers encourage all students to engage, explore, and expand their cultural understanding — forging bonds and creating community with people from all different backgrounds. YSE also strives to cultivate community, inclusion, and belonging through student environmental interest groups, student affinity groups, community gatherings, academically themed events, and cultural celebrations.