Words on accepting appointment as Yale’s 23rd president

I need to express my appreciation to many people here today. Once again, to Rick Levin, who has provided me with remarkable opportunities to serve Yale.

I would like to thank Chip Goodyear, the other trustees and faculty members on the presidential search committee, and the counselors from the alumni, faculty, staff, and students. I am counting on you to share the insights you have gleaned in this process for how Yale can advance and how I might best serve the university.

I thank Ed Bass and the Yale Corporation for electing me Yale’s 23rd president. Thank you for your confidence in me and for the privilege and honor of serving this amazing place that we all love so much in this new way.

And Marta, my wife, thank you for your loving support since we first met as fellow Yale graduate students… and senators of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate.

To the faculty, students, staff, alumni, and all of the Yale community: I look forward to years of listening to you, being inspired by you, serving you, and collaborating with you to continue to ensure that Yale is a model institution of higher learning and scholarship, and an inspiration to the world. This is a wonderful place, but it is the people and the ideas that make it so amazing. It is the people and the ideas… and the opportunities that so inspire me.

And although I cannot have imagined saying these words in all my years at Yale: I am honored and humbled to accept the appointment as Yale’s next president.

Thank you so much.