Together for a New Semester

Dear fellow Emersonians,

As the Fall 2024 Semester begins and we welcome students and faculty back to our campuses, my heart is filled with hope and optimism for the new year ahead. While we acknowledge the challenges we faced as a community in the Spring semester, we return to campus with a shared desire to uplift Emerson to new levels of performance and engagement, now and in the future. We undertake this work bolstered by what binds us together as Emersonians: our shared belief in the power of the arts and communication to advance and enhance our world.

Emerson has a long history of bringing the power of communication and the arts to our broader society. We also have an obligation to focus those strengths on building our shared community to ensure that Emerson has an inclusive culture where everyone feels welcome and supported. To move forward, we must first address the lingering feelings of pain and anxiety that some of you may have as you return to campus. As president, I am here with my leadership team to listen, hear, and respond to these concerns in meaningful ways. We will seek to do that through the EmersonTogether initiative and other opportunities to work collaboratively toward shared solutions.  

It has been a busy summer for us here on campus, highlighted by the onboarding of outstanding professionals filling previously interim or vacant leadership roles. Together, we have worked hard to apply the many lessons learned last year. We heard the community’s desire for more clarity and transparency around policies and processes that lay out responsibility and accountability for actions on campus. To that end, policies were updated to provide a greater focus on campus safety and continuity of operations, and they include a new institutional voice statement from Emerson’s Board of Trustees. Please become familiar with these changes for the new academic year by reading the important updates shared on Emerson Today and highlighted on the new Expression at Emerson page. 

There will be opportunities to actively share your feedback on these updated policies with College leadership to inform future updates. Together, we will strive to create a campus where everyone feels free to explore, experiment, engage, and express themselves safely in a culture of mutual respect without fear, intimidation, or discrimination.

That freedom is critical to Emerson’s future: the freedom to be curious, thoughtful, authentic, and connected in our community of storytellers, artists, communicators, and professionals. From our founding in 1880 to today and into the future, that freedom reflects our understanding that exposure to expansive, interconnected, and sometimes opposing ideas is necessary for a higher education that advances our society and enriches our world. In other words, “Expression Necessary to Evolution.”

With that in mind, welcome, or welcome back, to this incredible institution. I look forward to working with all of you to support our inclusive community and honor the diversity of viewpoints and experiences that make us all Emersonians. 

Respectfully yours,

Jay M. Bernhardt
President