FAS Strategic Review Committee

To: FAS faculty and staff
Cc: FAS Dean's Office; FAS Steering; President's Office; Provost's Office; Yale College Dean's Office; GSAS Dean's Office

As I announced last spring, the FAS is beginning a the FAS is beginning a strategic review and planning process this fall. The FAS Strategic Review Committee is tasked with providing the FAS and the university with recommendations on how we may better achieve our goal of supporting a world class faculty in pursuit of Yale’s research and teaching mission in Yale College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and related units; and how we can provide the best possible organization in pursuit of that goal.

The committee, chaired by Maureen Long, Bruce D. Alexander ’65 Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and listed in full below, will address specific questions including: what are the compelling issues, challenges and opportunities that should motivate the FAS’s intellectual and strategic investments? How well are we doing now, relative to our peer institutions, as well as to our own values and aspirations? And how can we organize ourselves and use our resources better? You can read the full committee charge on the FAS website.

The committee will conduct its work throughout this academic year and has been asked to submit its report to the FAS by May 2026. The committee will consult broadly across the FAS and the university, and I encourage you to provide your feedback at this critical time in higher education. I’m very grateful to the committee members, an incredibly thoughtful and experienced group, for agreeing to serve.  

Faculty and staff will have opportunities to meet with the committee to share ideas and feedback. You may also share input anonymously through a webform. In the coming weeks, the committee will announce opportunities for you to meet with them.

The FAS is at the heart of Yale’s research and teaching mission, and I’m grateful to the committee members and to all of you for working together to help it thrive. I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas and vision for the future of the FAS, and to our ongoing work together.

Sincerely,

Steven

Steven Wilkinson
Dean
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Yale University

Committee membership

• Maureen Long, Committee Chair; Bruce D. Alexander ’65 Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences; Chair, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
• Dirk Bergemann, Douglass and Marion Campbell Professor of Economics and Professor of Computer Science and of Management
• Damon Clark, Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; of Physics; and of Neuroscience
• Sarah Demers, Professor of Physics; Chair, Department of Physics
• Erica R. Edwards, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of English and of Black Studies; Chair, Department of Black Studies
• Milette Gaifman, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Classics and of the History of Art; Chair, Department of the History of Art
• John Hall, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics
• Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French
• Wendy Berry Mendes, Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology
• Alan Mikhail, Chace Family Professor of History
• Douglas Rogers, Professor of Anthropology; Chair, Department of Anthropology
• Jas Sekhon, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and of Statistics and Data Science and Professor in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies
• Alexandra Apolloni, Staff, Associate Dean, Strategic Initiatives and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Sciences