My Story series

Ellen Gulachenski

When I was a sophomore, I went to get my study card signed by my advisor, the chair of the electrical engineering department. As he reviewed my plan of courses he stated, "I don't know why I am bothering with all this paperwork, women don't belong in engineering." I got another advisor after that. I learned when I graduated that he had made me take more science/engineering classes than others in my major. I assume that was in the hopes I would fail.

Ben Walter

Office of Diversity and Inclusion

There are many ways in which I feel that I belong at Yale. As a white, cisgender, non-disabled, middle-class, thin man who grew up in the United States, my identities are affirmed here. In meetings, in my office, and everywhere on campus, I see people who look like me. My habitual and often unconscious ways of thinking and acting are normalized. On paper, my mutually constitutive identities are largely accepted.

When I started working here in 2015, I had anxieties about how others would respond to my queerness. But on my first day, I met other white queer people in positions of power at the university. Not many, but they existed. I soon found community through the LGBTQ Affinity Group. Seven years later, I’m grateful for the opportunities I have had to share my story and find connection—if you’d like to learn more, you can watch  my presentation on the history of Pride Month  and its importance to me.

But why do I fit in at Yale? I believe that my sense of belonging directly stems from the forces of oppression that validate who I am (white, cisgender, a man, etc.), because of the forces of oppression on which Yale was founded. You know the list: racism, sexism, ableism, fatphobia, homo/bi/transphobia, classicism, and religious hegemony. These systems are built into the fabric of this institution. They persist today, (un)consciously recreated, by well-meaning people like me.

I hope that through the efforts at the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, where I work, together we all can create new ways of interacting so that everyone can feel like they belong.

Nancy Kraus

Yale School of Nursing (YSN), Class of 1978

I came to Yale as a graduate student. My immigrant father did not finish high school, and my mom did not go to college. So, to go to an Ivy League school was pretty intimidating, and I knew I was accepted off the wait list to the second class Yale School of Nursing had started for college graduates who were not already nurses. I wanted to be a midwife more than I wanted to be a nurse, so there was a little cognitive dissonance involved in my early days at the school. However, I had a successful 40-year career as a midwife thanks to YSN and now serve on the YSN Alumnae Board where I am still impressed by the people who graduated from Yale!

Larry Bensky

Yale Class of 1958, Pierson College

I felt very strongly that I did not belong at Yale the first weekend of my residence in Farnam Hall on the Old Campus. Three guys and I went for a walk across the street on the New Haven green. One mentioned that he'd be going to one of the churches there that Sunday. "Anyone here a Methodist?" he asked. The other guys answered with various Protestant denominations, and all eyes turned to a silent me. "I don't go to church," I said. "I'm Jewish." There were no other Jews that I was aware of in Farnum. I knew there was a quota, and that I had been one of the few admitted. I also knew that my parents, who had become increasingly aware that I no longer went to our Brooklyn synagogue, feared I would be totally lost to Judaism in an environment where there were few Jews.

One of my Farnum mates knew New Haven (he was from Bridgeport) and kindly told me there was a nearby Synagogue, on Orange Street. (One of the few structures that had not been torn down for the infamous, never completed "Oak Street Connector.") I never set foot in the place.

Instead I set foot in Payne Whitney Gym, where I played endless hours of pick-up basketball. In the Sterling Memorial library, where I spent endless hours reading random fiction and non-fiction, none of which had anything to do with my assigned courses. In the streets leading to East Rock where, weather permitting, I hiked to find a spot to read some more. And in Sprague Hall, where I figured out how to find LPs of composers I loved (Mozart especially) and listened to them on headphones. And in George and Harry's bar, which served beer to Yalies, regardless of their age.

Slowly I made my way into the Yale hierarchy, principally by working on the Yale Daily News. I was an outsider writing and editing material having mostly to do with the inside. Eventually I became Managing Editor, supervising about a hundred volunteer workers. My academic career was, at best, mediocre. Though I did get Highest Honors in my notoriously easy major, American Studies, for my senior essay, "William James and Pragmatism."

I didn't realize how much I had become a part of Yale until I graduated, and my ties frayed or severed. But that walk amongst the churches freshman week began it all. Yale had accepted me as a student, without consideration or support for me as an immigrant's son, as a big city kid, and as a spiritual, aetheistic lost soul.

Nadia Ahmad

Yale Law School (YLS), Visiting Associate Professor, and Yale School of the Environment, incoming PhD student

I wasn’t quite sure which direction campus was as I had arrived in the night. I experienced a palpable sense of dread of these new surroundings combined with the excitement of another adventure. As I walked out of the building I was staying in, I looked around trying to spatially orient myself. Then I spotted another visible Muslim woman walking with a sense of purpose presumably in the direction of campus. She was wearing a soft glacial green pantsuit with a backpack on and moving with a certain haste, oblivious to her surroundings. When I saw her face, I took a double take as I thought I had recognized it, but I wasn’t sure. She would be gone before I would see her. I didn’t know anyone here now, I thought to myself. Then I remembered she was the Student Body President.

The same campus which elected her to lead student government also wanted me to teach there. I realized I was more in my element than I gave myself credit for. The transgressions of imposter syndrome would suddenly vanish. Despite my inhibitions and reservations about Yale, my standing there at that moment and Bayan walking by were the new direction of the university, not by design, but essentially happenstance and the systems dynamics of change. Bayan translates from Arabic as clearness, lucidity, and manifestation. The Slavic meaning of my name “Nadia” is “hope.” A few months earlier in DC, another hijabi Yale alumna remarked that she didn’t know any other hijabi professors at Yale Law School. I didn’t think that could be true, that there hadn’t been another hijabi professor at YLS.

I realized it may have been true as any other hijabis I knew were fellows or lecturers. I emailed the library archivists and asked them. They also came up empty-handed. As I kept looking, I realized I may not only be the first hijabi professor at Yale Law School, but the entire university.

Rev. Dr. Samuel Bolivar George, III

Yale Divinity School (YDS), 1985-88, M.Div

I arrived on campus on the first day of exams in the fall of 1984. I was amazed that several students took some serious time out of their schedules to show me around as well as talk about student life, academics, etc. Ann Millar, who was the Director of Admissions at the time, arranged for me to stay in one of the apartments on the YDS campus. I was hugely impressed with the generosity, affirmation, community, academic rigor, and the sheer beauty of the campus. I almost immediately fell in love with YDS and decided then and there that if I were accepted and offered a reasonable financial aid package, I would matriculate. And it was so.

When I first arrived the next fall, I had several heavy pieces of luggage with me. Some of my new compatriots, total strangers at the time, helped me get everything to my room in Brainerd House. Brainerd was one of my many communities-within-the-community. I suppose I was one of the lucky ones— felt loved, valued, and nurtured from the very beginning and almost continuously during my time there.

Henrique Oliva

Department of Psychiatry

When I first came to New Haven, I walked around old campus, and Yale School of Medicine facilities, before starting my work as a researcher in my current lab. I was overwhelmed by the grandeur and beauty of the buildings. Not to mention the beautiful people all around, with all kinds of ethnicities and distinct origins. I couldn't believe I'd be surprised with it, since I came from a country with great diversity, which is Brazil. I even thought to myself: do I fit in this magic place that does actually look like from a fairytale?

It wasn't until my first day at work that I came to know my lab. I was received with a warm hug from my adviser, this role model and renowned researcher. I was also kindly welcomed by my bright research colleagues day after day. Then I thought to myself what has been my thought every morning in this fascinating University: ‘I feel like I belong here, and I want to transmit this feeling to whomever comes here after me!’

Edith Terry

Yale BA, 1974, History, Pierson College

As a diplomat's child, I grew up all over the map, mainly in Southeast Asia. In the second class of women at Yale, there were very few of us to start out with, and even fewer undergraduates from Asia or even ethnic Asians. I constantly felt as though I was being mistaken for somebody else, one of the majority white ethnicity to be sure, but with a background that was invisible. When I said I wanted to study Japanese, I was advised to study a Romance language.

When I said I wanted to study Southeast Asia, I was advised to study anthropology. No professor took an interest in me, and yet Yale had such rich resources in Asian studies that I felt I was in a field of plenty. If anything, the experience reinforced my independence and focus on Asia, which I never dropped. In Hong Kong for the past 23 years, with a career as a foreign correspondent and in think tanks, as well as in multinationals, I feel at home even though I do not fully belong. Some individuals are blessed or doomed to have hybrid belongings across cultures, and I am one.

Nikki Elbertson

Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Child Study Center In early 2002, my college advisor suggested I apply to an opening for research assistant in Dr. Peter Salovey’s Health, Emotion, and Behavior Laboratory at Yale. I called into the interview from a rotary phone in my Dayton, Ohio home. I was hired and asked to start two weeks after graduation. As I drove my sedan packed with my possessions from southern Ohio to New Haven, my first time leaving the state on my own, I had no idea what lay ahead. I had graduated Summa Cum Laude with a full academic scholarship and won awards for my thesis on ‘Effective Health Communications: Prolonging Worry About a Health Threat.’ Yet, as a first-generation college graduate of parents who barely finished high school and grandparents with only middle school educations, I anticipated some imposter syndrome.

Beginning in my new employee orientation and for years thereafter, the questions I got from various Yalies about where I went to school (a no-name university) and where I had traveled (nowhere outside of the US) reinforced my feelings of inadequacy. I often questioned my intelligence, self-worth, and if I would ever feel I belonged. Now, having spent almost half my life at Yale, I am not sure I have fully “arrived” at a consistent sense of belonging. Still, from research assistant to associate, lab manager to program director, to my current role as director of content and communications at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, I feel my background and perspectives have been appreciated and I am immensely grateful for the opportunities afforded to me. Twenty years at Yale has taught me that belonging is a journey that we create for ourselves and others—that it is each of our responsibilities to co-construct spaces rooted in warmth, support, and respect for each other and for ourselves.

Charles Dumas

Yale alumnus, Yale Law School

In 1975, I was one of a dozen black students starting at the Law School coming from a State University in New York. I was living off campus so I was already feeling a bit estranged. The SOP for paying for food in the dining room was to get your food then give the cashier your number from your ID card. I misplaced my ID card but continued giving my number. A few days later, after giving my number and sitting down to eat, two police detectives came over and asked me, rather gruffly, to stand up and follow them. It didn’t occur to me that I was being arrested, but I was. I mistakenly thought something awful had happened to my family. They took me into a room off the kitchen and asked to see my school ID, which of course, I had misplaced. They were about to take me into custody, when one of them asked for my drivers license. It turns out that I had been giving the wrong number to the cashier. She told the authorities who called the police. They thought that a “townie” had invaded the hallowed halls of the Law School and was criminally absconding with the food (which they had obviously never tasted). It created quite a scandal.

Down the road, I received an apology from the Dean and President Kingman Brewster. I became absorbed in 1st year law work, but I never really got over it. During the entire episode, no one had ever bothered asking me to show my ID to clear up the matter. The police were summoned. In our present litigious times under similar circumstances, I would have probably initiated a lawsuit. But in those times I swallowed the embarrassment, which really shouldn’t have been mine.

Divyani Goyal

Internal Medicine (Cardiovascular Section)

‘P waves have 3 different morphologies. Does that make sense?,’ Dr.Rose asks. I shout out ‘Yes, it does!’ I glitter with pride, scream at the top of my voice though I am sure that she can not hear me because I am muted on the zoom call. It is the first time ever that I have this reaction for ECGs as they have always scared me since my medical school. It is this fear which made me skip Dr. Rose's few classes in the beginning because I was worried, ‘What if she asks me a question?’ I would spend a day traumatizing myself with the complicated calculations in mathematics, but I will not spend a second to learn ECGs. But today, it makes sense!!

Dr. Rose's teaching skills, willingness to spend unlimited efforts, and dedication swept away my fear, which haunted me for a minimum of five years. She moved her magic wand and it was gone! I say to myself, ‘I have to talk to her. I want to thank her.’ So, I decide to write an email. I am continuously checking my inbox waiting for her to reply. The wait is over. I open this email like a christmas present. She instead thanked me. The email is immensely powerful and lifting, a few words by Dr. Rose makes me land on a Library desk reading a book on ECG. Dr. Rose's words, passion, beauty, and soul touched my heart and I am still wondering how I connected with her through a five-second moment on a zoom call when she is miles apart and is completely a stranger to me.

Lisa Slade Martin

Yale alumna, Silliman College

Belonging at Yale, to me, brings to mind the ‘I See You Look,’ that look that black students give to other black students on campus. It’s a purposeful look of recognition and kindness. It’s eye contact, with a smile or nod or brief wave. It’s the small gesture of acknowledging that you and the other person are Black Yalies. That we see each other. We gave each other ‘The Look’ all day, every day. This shared sign language, that never had to be explained, was the first thing I noticed about being Black on campus when I arrived in 1979.

‘The Look’ cemented our connection, powered our network. It created familiarity that fed me and encouraged me in my pursuits each day. I enjoyed it, wallowed in it, and passed it on. These subtle but impactful actions toward each other developed organically. It was not planned. Instead, like so much of black cultural mini phenomena, it grew from a fertile part of us that knew what we needed to sustain us and keep us thriving. There is no one way of being Black, or connected to Black people, at Yale or anywhere. Maybe some black people (however that is defined individually) did not notice or partake in The Look. I’m grateful that the majority did.

I’m indebted to Black faculty, and faculty of other backgrounds, that responded warmly, quickly and openly to mine and other student’s search for connectedness to them. My achievements today are rooted in the kindness and responsiveness of Dr. Edmund Gordon, Dr. Sylvia Boone, Dr. John Blassingame and Dr. James Comey. I take this opportunity to lift their names and spirits, in gratitude, for being part of my Belonging at Yale.

Ying Cai

School of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine (PCCSM)

Primary school, junior school, senior school from 6-18 age ( 1979-1992) in China. Medical student, bachelor degree in medical college from 18-2 (1992-199). Residency two years in hospital, then postgraduate, medical doctoral degree in medical college (1999-200). Clinic work in PCCSM in hospital after medical doctoral degree. Research fellow in thoracic disease research unit in Mayo Clinic 2007-2008. Clinic work in PCCSM in hospital in China. Now I come to Yale PCCSM as research scientist. I am married. My life is study, work, home, shopping and occasional travel.

Liesle Lin

Yale Class of 1985, Saybrook College

It was dark days for Yale from 1981-1985. There was no downtown shopping nor the foodie places that exist now. Coming from the Midwest and terrible public schooling, I had no idea how to manage lectures or TA sessions. Waspy private-schooled classmates (St. Paul's, Andover, Exeter, any number of private NYC schools) teased me. ‘I bet you had a sink disposal and a dishwasher.’ It was a difficult time—financial aid student, required work/study, on campus for Thanksgiving and most spring breaks. Depression settled in. Being Asian-American but unusually poor and not well prepared for the academics, with no Tiger mom, I sank and swam as time went on.

By the end, I found my peeps—wonderful, dear friends who are friends to this day, and happily three of us live in NYC. We are all products of public schooling and from smallish towns before Yale. Though the two are blonde-haired and blue-eyed, we managed through the four years, which none of us would ever repeat. He is the NYS Commissioner for Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; she is a music mogul at Elektra Records; and I am a retired CFO/COO of philanthropic organizations. My daughter went to private school in NYC and then graduated Yale in 2017. I like to think she belonged much more than I did.

Mary Irene O’Connor, MD

Yale alumna, Berkeley College

In 1976, I was a first year student and member of the women's rowing team. We did not have shower facilities at the boathouse as did the men and the University had not addressed the issue. 19 of us protested in the Women's Athletic Director's office by stripping to show the ‘Title IX’ that we had written across our bare chests and backs while our captain, the badass Chris Ernst, read a statement which began with, ‘These are the bodies that Yale is exploiting.’ Our protest was heralded as the first stand for gender equity in college sports. Yale built an addition to the boathouse by the following spring. We had great success as National champions (1979). Some of us also had the honor of representing the United States as Olympians.

Noah Humphrey

Yale Divinity School

It was during the fall of 2022 and I was doing my first year of my Masters of Divinity degree in Hawaii amidst Covid procedures. I talked about it  in a recent article,   but I didn't go in depth with the grief I faced from losing my friend to Covid at the age of 21. My zoom school for the first year went awry and there were times where I had to muster courage and faith to get things done more efficiently and strain with the first year. Waking up around 3 a.m. for some of my classes, and providing early mornings to get papers with a mountain of red across them humbled me. Through this, I felt that I was not doing enough, however when I began to evaluate how I'm contributing as a settler of the sovereign nation of Hawaii, it all changed. I reached out to the healing communities and I tried to absorb as much as I could from reading nearly 30-40 300+ page books over this time to better prepare my writing.

My mother's prayers and her speeches during the fall semester inspired me since before we moved to Hawaii, me and my family of 10 were in South Central LA. Along with this and massive strides with the Graduate Writing Lab, my peers began to see the changes themselves and it was at this point, I knew I belonged. I belonged because I involved the community in the work to heal myself, the sovereign nation around me, and to give back to it via community service, activism, and academics.

This led to my drive to publish my own poetry book ‘Morgan Boy’ available in the libraries and bookstore at Yale (plus Amazon and Lulu). Still learning to grow into my role as a healer and as a leader, but I know that it's a marathon not a sprint!!!

Tabea Botthof

Yale College, Psychology on the Neuroscience Track (B.Sc.)

I would be lying if I said that it did not take me a while to feel like I belonged at Yale. Belonging to me was not the emotion I felt when I first stepped foot onto Yale's campus and felt an incredibly welcoming sense of community. It was something else....

Coming to Yale, I had no friends here. I flew over from Germany not knowing anything about the campus or anyone who was going to start their semester with me that fall. I felt excited, but shy; ready to find my place, but insecure about whether it would work the way I imagined it. From the first moment on, everyone I met at Yale was super welcoming, helpful and enthusiastic. I recognized this honest, caring community right away. But did I belong in that community? Not yet. At this point, I felt welcome at this foreign place, but it was still that: foreign. I still felt like I belonged only at home in Germany, where my friends and family were and where I knew my way around.

But with some time, I went on to collect countless invaluable experiences at Yale, making friends and learning within an ideal mixture of academics and playing on Yale's Ice Hockey team. To have this mixture in my life was the reason I wanted to come to Yale. And once I got settled in, I didn't want to leave this life. That's where I realized that I could belong in more than one place in the world. Because belonging to me is this feeling that I have at home and at Yale. It is a feeling that you get laying in bed at night, when you close your eyes, reflect on the day, and think: ‘I know my place and I am happy here.’

Ingeborg Hyde

School of Public Health

The first time I ever felt that I belonged at Yale was when I first saw and logged into my Yale email. It was so powerful and humbling seeing my name next to four letters that I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be affiliated with.

Kelly Weed

Yale Center for Clinical Investigation

In 2010, I went jogging with neighbors and ruptured a brain aneurysm which caused a stroke leaving me disabled. I had just stopped working as a clinical research coordinator and was taking some time off before looking for a new job. I was rushed to Yale New Haven hospital where a doctor performed an emergency crainiotomy that saved my life. 22 days later in the neuro ICU I had a stroke that left me without use of my left arm. I was devastated, but my focus was getting back home to my daughters who were 3 and 5 at the time. I learned to walk again and returned home to my family after time in rehab at Gaylord. After a few years at home as a housewife, I wanted to get back to research but did not know how that would work as a disabled individual.

For ten years, I applied to a number of jobs in clinical research going on many interviews but never landing a job back in the field that I loved. I kept my certification in clinical research current, all in the hopes that one day I would make it back to my occupation. My dream was to work at Yale. I had worked for Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland and I wanted back in to the clinical research world. My husband and I decided I would do one more push to get back in but if it did not work, I would find another career path.

I saw a posting for a clinical research coordinator at Yale and decided to go for it, I landed an interview. and several weeks later got offered a position at the YCCI. I was delighted and I wake up everyday excited to work in the field I love. I have been met here at Yale with open arms; everyone has been very accomodating from my boss, to my co-workers who don't mind if I walk slow or type slow, to the security guard who noticed I was disabled and walked me all the way back to my building when I got lost, Yale has made me feel like I belong and I'm so proud to be a part of Yale.

Susan Nappi

Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), Office of Public Health Practice

My connection with Yale began before I was born. My great grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was a custodian for the University. My grandmother grew up poor and told stories that underscored the ever-present town/gown tension in New Haven. This dichotomy of ‘townies’ vs. ‘elites’ made it challenging for me to pursue an education as I grew up with the sentiment that higher education was not for people like us. Despite this, I attended SUNY Purchase and met professors who mentored me.

After being connected with a Yale researcher while working on my senior thesis, I obtained my first job at Yale as a lab technician a year after graduation. Eventually, I became a research coordinator. While I had a secured a place at Yale, I felt disconnected due to my first-gen status and background. After learning about public health, I eventually applied to graduate school and on a whim, included YSPH on my list. My acceptance was a shock but also bittersweet as I felt I was betraying my family. While sitting in class, I ticked off all the ways my background made my family and me susceptible to disease —lack of education, food insecurity, low income, smoking, abuse. Being characterized this way made me feel extremely uncomfortable, vulnerable, and ashamed. Public health’s narrative had not yet changed to acknowledge these ‘risk factors’ as the result of societal conditions that marginalized specific groups and not personal failures. Because of this experience, I knew that I would focus my work on co-creation of solutions in partnership with communities.

Now back at YSPH, the vision of public health is changing and with it, my sense of belonging. I am grateful to be working towards equitable solutions and co-creation with the communities we seek to serve alongside others at YSPH.

Noah Cirisoli

Athletics

The time when I felt like I belonged at Yale was when I worked my first Yale vs. Harvard football game in the fall of 2019 at The Bowl. I remember standing on the field and looking up into the waves of Yale Faithful in the crowd- students and non-students, young and old, people from all different backgrounds. It was an amazing feeling of pride and unity; and it was a feeling that I never forgot. It is what made me realize that Yale is the place where I want to be...that Yale is home.

Julienne Hadley

Office of Public Affairs and Communications

When I became pregnant with my first child, I feared that this would prevent me from continuing to grow my career. I worried that I would be discriminated against if I couldn't be available for a 6 p.m. meeting, or if I needed to drop everything to pick up a sick child. As a person who is committed to growing as a leader, I didn't want being a parent to stand in the way of achieving my goals.

One of the most assuring moments for me was when I was hired for a new role when I was six months pregnant. I was honest with the hiring manager about my pregnancy and maternity leave plans. While I know that it's not legally possible to discriminate against me, what I found was a hiring manager who was eager to welcome me to my new role, and who completely supported me during this process. It really helped me to feel like I belonged, even in my new role as a parent and an aspiring leader at Yale.