[Written by the student community, in 2017, for the Strategic Plan]
Our history at YSE is steeped in the kinds of path-breaking research, scholarship, practice, teaching, and impactful engagement that advance the solution of complex natural resource and environmental challenges. Our graduates become nationally and internationally renowned environmental leaders, engaging across differences to find productive pathways.
As we aim to diversify our faculty, students, staff, and our partnerships even more broadly so that we can think, act, and engage most effectively with the wide breadth of environmental challenges, it is imperative that YSE cultivates an inclusive community, respectful of all of its members.
Yale University School of the Environment is committed to the promotion of personal and professional development of all individuals in its community, and encourages dialogue that will foster the growth, well-being, and dignity of all its members. To attain these goals, we rely indispensably on language—on words. Words are the life blood of a university, essential both for professing the truths that scholars uncover and for confronting the soft and hard bigotries when we encounter them. Careful use of words is a special responsibility on each of us to embrace the diversity in our midst with warmth and celebration.
The school is dedicated to maintaining an environment which places the highest priority on collegial relationships, mutual respect, shared learning, and sensitivity among its students, faculty, and staff. An educational community functions best when there is civility and respect for the dignity and worth of each individual.
THE 7 PILLARS
We state a commitment to these foundational pillars of our community: