Messages

Dear Johns Hopkins Faculty, Students, and Staff: We are facing an increasingly challenging moment as COVID-19 has moved from an isolated and seemingly distant outbreak to a global pandemic that is now clearly among us. The reality of the rapid spread of this virus calls upon us to acknowledge how starkly daily life across the world has changed. It also underscores the urgent need to step up the vigorous interventions...

Dear Johns Hopkins Students, Faculty, and Staff: I am writing at a critical inflection point in our university’s response to the global COVID-19 epidemic. Our approach to the epidemic has been guided by our commitment to sound public health principles and to informing our decisions with the best possible data that we can secure. It has also been guided by our deep commitment to the welfare of the entire Hopkins’...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community, Yesterday, I joined a chorus of voices that celebrated publicly the life and legacy of Congressman Elijah Cummings. I know so many of you share a profound sadness at this loss of an extraordinary and dear friend and an unflinching champion for the people of Baltimore, our state, and our nation. A proud son of this great city, Elijah Cummings held all of us—individually and collectively—to...

Dear Faculty, Students, and Staff: The start of the new academic year is a time of rejuvenation, and I enter every fall semester with the thrill of possibility. This year was no different. In fact, I saw that possibility in full flower late last week when I joined an extraordinary group of city and community leaders and Johns Hopkins’ neighbors and employees in Johnston Square Park. We were there to mark the expansion...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: Over the past several months, we have watched with growing concern the change in tenor of the national dialogue regarding the role of universities in supporting the open international exchange of ideas and people, while also preserving U.S. national security interests. Amid increased scrutiny by Congress and government agencies of research endeavors involving foreign-born faculty...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: I am delighted to inform you that late yesterday the university’s trustees approved the acquisition of the Newseum building located on Pennsylvania Avenue in the heart of the nation’s capital. This award-winning building—just steps from Congress, the White House, and the National Mall—will be renovated to house the university’s current activities in Washington. When...

Dear Members of the Johns Hopkins Community: When we gather with family or friends to celebrate Thanksgiving later this week, many of us will begin the holiday meal by expressing our gratitude for the blessings we have received. Today, we are grateful and humbled for one more, extraordinary blessing. Michael R. Bloomberg, graduate of the Class of 1964 and former chair of our board of trustees, has made a gift to us that...

Dear Johns Hopkins Community: Earlier today, we were thrilled to join members of the Henrietta Lacks family in announcing the Johns Hopkins University’s plans to construct and name a new building on the medical campus in East Baltimore in honor of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks, through her life and her immortal cell line, had an immeasurable impact on medical science, touched countless lives around the world...

Dear Faculty, Students, and Staff: Over the last several years we have been working together to make our university a more equitable place to learn, work, and live—one that is free from discrimination and harassment and fully inclusive of the broadest possible range of people, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We know that this rich diversity is essential to our mission and to the excellence we strive...

Dear Students, When I first came to Johns Hopkins, Ralph O’Connor, a sage trustee and namesake of the O’Connor Recreation Center, gave me some good advice: “Don’t just sit in your office and get stuck behind that desk. Get out and walk the campus.” And every time I’d see Ralph, he’d ask: “Have you walked today? Where’d you go? Who’d you see?” Last...