This is the first in a weekly Deseret News National series that will profile an established, educated and well-known member of society families should know about. Send any ideas, tips and comments to hscribner@deseretdigital.com.
College protests have been numerous this year. In addition to ones at the University of Missouri and Princeton, students from Yale University protested against the administration after professors and administrators offered “heavy-handed advice on what Halloween costumes to avoid,” according to The Atlantic.
Specifically, students were told to avoid wearing costumes that could offend minorities — “outfits that included elements like feathered headdresses, turbans or blackface,” The New York Times reported. But other faculty members spoke out in protest against that idea, saying students should feel free to dress up as whatever they want, the Times reported.
This inspired protests throughout campus from students who felt the school wasn’t doing enough to address concerns about race relations, according to The New York Times.
But on Monday, Yale President Peter Salovey issued a statement that called for a better and more united Yale campus to help fight these issues.
“I have heard the expressions of those who do not feel fully included at Yale, many of whom have described experiences of isolation, and even of hostility, during their time here,” he wrote in the statement. “It is clear that we need to make significant changes so that all members of our community truly feel welcome and can participate equally in the activities of the university, and to reaffirm and reinforce our commitment to a campus where hatred and discrimination are never tolerated.”
Salovey has served at Yale since July 2013, according to his bio page on the school’s website. Before that, he served as provost for the school from 2008 to 2013. He started working with the Yale faculty in 1986 after receiving a number of degrees from the Ivy League school.
Salovey still visits his family in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, according to the Daily Breeze. His family was originally from Buffalo before his father got a job as a research chemist at the University of Southern California when he was young.
A high school in Buffalo wanted Salovey to stay in the town because of his academic achievements, but he chose to move West with his family, the Daily Breeze reported. He attended Rolling Hills High, where he excelled in academic and theater programs, and was named valedictorian, despite some protests from the school that a newcomer shouldn’t win the award.
“I argued with the powers that be; I said, ‘You can’t do that to a child,'” Salovey’s mother, Elaine, told the Daily Breeze. “That was the first year they had two valedictorians.”
Salovey’s academic career only blossomed from there. Now, he is most known in academic circles for his research on emotional intelligence. Back in 1990, Salovey and University of New Hampshire’s John D. Mayer published a paper on the framework for emotional intelligence.
At the time, it didn’t mean much. But today, emotional intelligence — how people observe, respond and understand emotion — is a widely discussed topic, especially among families. It’s proven to be beneficial for family businesses and something parents often teach their children through communication or by putting them in schools that teach emotional intelligence.
“It took a little while to catch on,” Salovey told the Daily Breeze, a local Los Angeles news website. “Now it’s very popular in schools as something to teach kids, or in business settings as a sort of soft skill: Why are some people better at leading teams than others?”
That’s a question Salovey still deals with today, given his position. But it seems based on his most recent statement for Yale that he hopes to work through a united front, bringing people together for education and academia.
“The conversations we are having today, about freedom of expression and the need for inclusivity and respect — principles that are not mutually exclusive — resonate deeply with the issue Dean Holloway and I addressed at the beginning of the semester, about the name of Calhoun College,” he said. “At that time, I quoted President Lincoln and said that Yale, like our nation, has ‘unfinished work.’ This is just as true with the work that stands before us now. I am eager to embark on it with you.”