The end of summer can be a melancholy time, but in academia it is an occasion for joy. Welcoming first-year students and faculty, along with returning members of our community, makes for a kind of second spring, as our school renews itself. It is a time to look to the future, but also to mark where we have been. SPH has undergone many changes over the last few years, building on the work our community has done over four decades to deliver a world-class public health education to our students. I would like to use this Dean’s Note to reflect on our evolution as a school, while anticipating, with excitement, the future. This is a time when the work of public health is more important than ever. It strikes me as fitting that, at the start of the academic year, we reaffirm why we do what we do, touching on the core values that animate our school, as we come together once more to build a healthier world.

Like many Americans, I have found it hard to stop thinking about the heartbreaking photo of the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Angie Valeria, migrants from El Salvador who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande to seek asylum in the US. I think about the hopes and fears that might have caused them to make such a dangerous journey—hopes for a better life in America, fears of having to return to face gang violence and economic hardship in El Salvador. I have especially been thinking about Óscar and Valeria this Fourth of July week, a time to celebrate the country’s founding, and the ideals of freedom and opportunity that characterize this nation at its best. These ideals are important to all Americans, but, I would argue, they are particularly important to immigrants. Indeed, they are the reason many immigrants come to this country, often in the face of difficult circumstances.

It's Pride Month, a time for celebrating the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. LGBT individuals have made significant strides toward greater equality, notably with the 2015 passage of marriage equality in the U.S. Yet this population continues to face a range of mental health challenges, many of which are linked to conditions of marginalization.

Harvard University’s recent announcement that law professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr would no longer remain faculty dean of one of its undergraduate houses raises profound questions for all university senior leaders.

The reasons for Harvard’s decision are complex, involving long-standing complaints about Sullivan’s administration of the house. But the recent focus on his leadership was precipitated by an outcry over his time on the legal defence team of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Some members of the Harvard community felt that Sullivan’s willingness to defend Weinstein, who has been accused of multiple sexual crimes, compromised his ability to provide a safe, supportive environment for students. Sullivan’s advocates, on the other hand, have said that although Sullivan no longer represents Weinstein, his willingness to do so is testament to the fact that even people accused of heinous offences still have the right to the best legal defence they can access. Some have even cited John Adams, a Harvard alum, who, in 1770, defended the British soldiers accused of carrying out the Boston Massacre, despite his personal sympathies for American independence.

The Sullivan controversy highlights the challenge leaders of schools and universities face as they navigate the conversation around difficult issues. As the dean of a school of public health, I have long pondered when and how academic leaders should take public positions on issues they feel are important. To my thinking, they must do so. But Sullivan’s case raises the fraught question of what happens when that position runs counter to the views held by many in the institution (since choosing to represent Weinstein has been perceived, rightly or wrongly, to amount to taking a position).

Access to legal abortion is under threat in the US as never before in the post-Roe era. Anti-abortion laws passed in states like Alabama and Missouri have all but ended legal abortion access in these areas. If legal challenges to these laws reach the Supreme Court, the Court’s new conservative majority raises the possibility that the precedent set by Roe v. Wade in 1973 will not be upheld, clearing the way for conservative states effectively ending access to abortion for millions of women.

On November 30, 1900, in Room 16 of the Hôtel d’Alsace in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, Oscar Wilde died at age 46. His death was not sudden. The poet, novelist, and playwright had been in declining health for some time. While there is still debate over the exact nature of his final illness, it appears to have been some form of ear disease. Despite his diminished state, Wilde’s famous wit never left him. As he slipped away in his dingy room, he is said to have joked, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us must go.”

Wilde had been among the most celebrated figures of the 19th century. Works like The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray sealed his reputation as a popular entertainer. His humor and charisma made him, for a time, the toast of high society. Yet in just a few short years, he fell from his position of influence into the poor health that would kill him.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Many of us have heard some variation of this at a graduation ceremony. It is the sort of advice we tend to give to students as they prepare for the next step in their lives, and which members of the class of 2019 will likely hear this weekend. Witty, yet profound, the quote has been attributed to Oscar Wilde. It speaks to the importance of finding one’s own identity and staying true to it in a world that offers many incentives for doing just the opposite. 

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