Dear Hunter College family,
I was profoundly honored and excited to join this amazing family as president earlier this month, so you can imagine how thrilled I am now to have the privilege to say, on behalf of the Hunter College leadership team: Welcome — and welcome back — to campus for the new academic year!
Hunter has a storied legacy as an engine of scholarly innovation for the world and an engine of educational opportunity for generations of New Yorkers — including my mother — as well as so many who are new to this remarkable city and to this country. This legacy provides such a jumping off point for future promise, in no small part because of the diversity of lived experiences that each of you — all of us — bring here every day. That is the source of our collective knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and excellence. You can hear that richness in the languages we speak, see it in the art we portray, understand it in the innovations we discover, and feel it in the relationships we make. It’s also the source of our motivation to move seamlessly from our classrooms into the many neighborhoods that Hunter calls home across this city and beyond, collaborating not only across our disciplines and professional niches, but as importantly with those who live the issues of our time every day, on the ground. Indeed, the more we learn here, the more humble we all become, even as our commitment to take on the most intractable problems that our city and our world face grows by the day.
The past year has shown us that the world needs us to bring all of that — indeed, everything we’ve got — to the table right now. As a social psychologist who has spent my career studying how good we all are at drawing lines of difference between and amongst ourselves, too often dividing that world into insiders and outsiders, I also know that we must work together to overcome that instinct. We must stretch our “families,” as hard as it often seems. I say this because I believe that this is precisely the kind of institution and family that can rise to this moment, for the diverse Hunter family has the potential to cultivate empathy rather than succumb to the pressures to retreat to our corners. Yes, it is hard to do and goes counter to all our human instincts, but we can do it. To find our way forward at times like this, as clichéd as it may sound, we need to look inside. We need to tap that wellspring that enables us to imagine the world from the perspective of others and build understanding anew from the common ground of our common humanity. To be sure, that is not easy, but ours is precisely the kind of diverse community that the world needs to step up right now to imagine and to realize a more just and peaceful future.
That starts with listening to each other, which is precisely what we’re going to do this fall as we engage in an inclusive and democratic college-wide strategic planning process. You’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks, but it will start with listening sessions, which will be among the multiple and multi-modal opportunities for all members of the Hunter family to express their aspirations for our beloved institution and how we can strive to fulfill them. Our planning will embrace students, faculty, and staff, campus constituencies such as the Hunter College Senate, Faculty Delegate Assembly, and PSC representatives, as well as alumni and community stakeholders from across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and our neighbors everywhere that Hunter has a presence. It will help us arrive, collectively, at an understanding of what we can bring to the table as a trusted anchor institution collaborating in our many New York City communities, as we pool our expertise with the expertise of stakeholders from all backgrounds and walks of life across this great city and beyond. By digging in locally, our work will resonate globally, and we will truly serve the public good.
As we start this new year with conversations about pushing our institution, our city, and our world forward, we actually will renew a fundamental element of Hunter’s legacy encapsulated by a legendary member of the Hunter family, Audre Lorde (HC ’59, HCHS ’51), in an inspirational quote now emblazoned on the glass surrounding our newly renovated MTA stop at 68th and Lexington: “Change is the immediate responsibility of each of us, wherever and however we are standing, in whatever arena we choose.”
Let’s make change together.
Yours in unity of purpose,
Nancy Cantor
President
