Messages

Dear Johns Hopkins Community, In 2013, we established the Hopkins Retrospective, a universitywide initiative to more deeply explore our history. Today, we write to provide you with an update on this work and to share some significant new information about our founder, Johns Hopkins. For most of the last century, our institutions believed Johns Hopkins to be an early and staunch abolitionist whose father...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: I write to you on the other side of a historic Election Day. While there is still much we don’t know as we wait for remaining states to certify results, it is beyond doubt that participation—especially by younger and first-time voters—reached levels not seen in decades. That so many Americans exercised their franchise in the throes of a deadly pandemic attests to the intensity and...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: We write today to share news about our spring semester. With a mix of cautious optimism, careful preparation, and strong desire to convene on our campuses, we are planning to resume in-person, on-campus academic and residential offerings this spring to the greatest extent possible. Our plans are shaped by your tremendous efforts to date to carry out our education, research, and clinical...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: This past summer, I had the opportunity to talk with Professor Martha Jones in the Department of History about her latest book, Vanguard, a history of Black women’s multigenerational struggle to secure the right to full political participation in American life. The women in Professor Jones’ book worked tirelessly and fearlessly across decades to win the franchise. Among...

October 15, 2020 Dear Johns Hopkins community: The past eight months have been among the most challenging in our university’s past century, as we have weathered together the effects of a devastating pandemic that has taken millions of lives and disrupted our global and national economies. Even as steady progress is being made toward a vaccine and improved therapeutics, and as we are developing new ways of carrying...

Dear Faculty, Students, Staff, and Neighbors: In June, we wrote to you to express Johns Hopkins’ commitment to reimagining public safety in our communities. We believed then, as we do now, that this moment calls upon all of us who care deeply about Baltimore and its citizens to help reduce the continuing threat of violence that is hurting the communities of which we are a part, and to imagine alternatives for ensuring...

At this pivotal time in our history—as a University and global community—you have inspired the very best in one another and shown the power of a community that’s centered on creativity, generosity, and compassion. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together this year.

Dear Faculty Colleagues: It is hard to overstate the importance of our junior faculty to the future of our university. They are without question some of the best young scholars, teachers, and clinicians anywhere in the world, and they bring new ideas and fresh perspectives to our quest for knowledge and discovery. The university’s continued eminence is tied to our success in supporting the growth and achievement...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: I want to be sure you heard some significant and very welcome news for our community. In an important victory for international students at Johns Hopkins and other universities, the federal government today agreed to rescind a change to rules for F-1 visa holders that would have prevented many students from coming back to the United States for studies this fall and could have forced others...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: In recent weeks, I have watched with increasing concern the steady march of decisions and policies put forward by this administration that unfairly target our international students and their families. As you know, the latest came on Monday when this administration released revised guidance regarding the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that substantially impacts our...