#presidentsmessage

November 2015

Dear Saybrook University Colleagues and Friends:

As we are heading into Thanksgiving, I write this letter with a heavy heart. Recent events in France, Mali, Syria, and elsewhere, have ripped open a series of wounds that are challenging the manner in which we respond to one another in our search for justice as well as understanding. Additionally, significant issues associated with racism continue to plague many communities across the United States. On top of all of this, we continue to see increasing income disparity leaving few if any localities untouched. These are just a few sobering examples that come immediately to mind, though I am sure each of us can identify many more. Our communities – indeed our world – is in great pain. In the midst of all this pain,

Saybrook University’s humanistic principles give us hope and determination to be a growing part of the necessary healing between people, communities, and nations. As a socially conscious institution, we are dedicated to transformation of the individual, who in turn goes out into the world to create substantive, progressive change. Given this, we must continually ensure the work we do is not merely scholarship that sits on a shelf. Rather, we faculty and students have the opportunity to turn the work we do into direct, positive action, which is already being done day-in-and-day-out by many of you. No doubt, this will require us to challenge the dominant socio-cultural-political discourses that seek to alienate individuals and groups or retreat to oversimplified “fixes” that fail to address the systemic issues contributing to our world’s ills.

Along with challenging such discourse we also have the opportunity – I would even say obligation – to first build understanding and then seek co-created solutions. These range from reducing intolerance through dialog and education, to improving race-relations in our communities by facing head-on the systemic forces at work, to enhancing economic opportunities for all of our citizens using a strong systems approach grounded in sound economic principles, to fully understanding the antecedent issues leading to the current wave of violence, to identifying ways to cope and effectively deal with the scourge of radicalism that is claiming hundreds upon thousands of lives the world over.

By focusing our efforts thusly, we increase our capacity to build bridges, establishing a foundation to engage in positive change that is buttressed by cooperation and collaboration across constituencies. Such efforts should ultimately be grounded in love for our fellow human beings and a genuine respect for life.

This Thanksgiving Week, I give thanks that we are all part of an authentic, deeply caring scholarly community that puts action and scholarship together to make a difference. Thank you for being part of this phenomenal institution, and advancing its ideals to make meaningful, fundamental, and lasting change.