On Choosing What We as a School Endorse | Dean's Note

Defining when we speak collectively as a community.

We are an activist school of public health, committed to creating healthier communities at the local, national, and global level. This is reflected in our school’s values statement:

We are committed to igniting and sustaining positive change that leads to health and well-being around the world. We strive for a respectful, collaborative, diverse, and inclusive community within our School of Public Health. We aim to promote justice, human rights, and equity within and across our local and global communities.

This means applying our knowledge and practice towards the goal of better health for all. It also means sometimes using our collective voice to support measures that will get us closer to this goal and speaking against policies that may harm health. There is, however, a range of issues, measures, policies that pertain to health and that may call for our collective attention.  At a simple operational level, the question therefore arises: should we as a school endorse a particular position, should we lend our collective name to a particular approach? In last week’s Note, I shared thoughts about how we can best support free and respectful academic speech by individuals within and at SPH. In today’s Note, an extension of last week’s theme, I will share some reflections on speech that we may—or may not—choose to endorse as collectively.

Read more here.