Support for Faculty

Faculty member speaking to students in a classroom

This university initiative supports and strengthens our faculty—its diversity and its engagement with the world through outstanding research, teaching, preservation, and practice. Yale invests in recruiting, retaining, and supporting world-class faculty members because their expertise is essential to our mission of improving the world and educating aspiring leaders to serve all sectors of society.

Highlighting Progress

Faculty Excellence and Diversity Initiative (FEDI)

This major program, which promotes faculty excellence, diversity, and inclusion across campus, was renewed and expanded in 2019 with an $85 million commitment across an additional five years. FEDI supports select ladder faculty and presidential visiting fellows who enrich diversity or contribute on another dimension of strategic importance to the university.

FEDI
Through the Faculty Excellence and Diversity Initiative, Yale has made 140 ladder faculty appointments and supported 60 Presidential Visiting Fellows.

Faculty professional development

Yale sponsors a wide range of opportunities for professional development, including Public Voices Fellowships, Faculty Success Fellowships, and new programs to support faculty mentoring.

Public Voices Fellowships

Enhanced benefits

Comprehensive benefits for eligible faculty members include parental leave policies, an annual childcare subsidy benefit, paid short-term medical disability leave, industry-leading YURAP investment options, and equitable and inclusive family-building benefits that feature improved fertility benefits, coverage for surrogacy, and support throughout the entire parenthood journey. Mental health and well-being benefits have been expanded, including Personal Wellness, Financial Wellness, and WorkLife.

Faculty benefits
Students walking in the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

This innovative center for pedagogical excellence provides workshops, consultations, and seminars for thousands of faculty members and students across all schools of Yale, and introduces faculty and students to new teaching methods, course evaluation approaches, and digital tools.

Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

University-wide faculty climate survey

In the fall of 2021, Yale conducted a survey (to be repeated every two years) to help identify strengths and areas that need additional work to foster a productive, vibrant, and inclusive campus culture for the faculty. In addition, Yale has become a partner in the Faculty Exit and Retention Survey, conducted by Harvard’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, which seeks to use data to help understand faculty mobility.

University-wide faculty climate survey

Belonging at Yale action plans

Each school has created a five-year action plan to support and enhance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through actions appropriate to the school’s specific cultures and needs.

Belonging at Yale action plans