David Zheng, Senior Photographer

On Wednesday night, Samuel Moyn stood alongside his family in the Grace Hopper dining hall as he spoke to the college’s community after being announced as their incoming Head of College.

The Chancellor James Kent Professor of Law and History will begin his term on July 1, 2024, after current Head of College Julia Adams announced that she would step down following ten years in the role.

“No home that we have together is going to be safe if it doesn’t let us be ourselves and explore challenging differences and learn from each other and once in a while change our minds,” Moyn said to the crowd gathered in the Hopper dining hall. “A home has to be a space of kindness and solidarity and we promise to do everything we can with your health to continue to make it the college you aspire and deserve to have.” 

Moyn started at the University in 2017 after serving as a professor of European legal history at Columbia University and then professor of law and history at Harvard University. He is an intellectual historian of modern Europe and global affairs, and his legal scholarship includes international law, human rights, the law of war and legal thought.

Alongside Moyn, ​​Alisa Berger will serve as associate head of college. Berger is the executive director of Deeper Learning Dozen, a public school innovation project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They will be joined by their daughter, Madeleine, and their nine-year-old dog, Floxy. Moyn and Berger have a second daughter, Lily, who is a first-year student at Reed College.  

Also at the announcement, Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis praised the tenure of Adams, who he said led the college through its renaming from Calhoun to Grace Hopper College and the COVID-19 pandemic, and presented her with a certificate for her “leadership and service.”

“For the past 10 years Grace Hopper College has had incredible leadership from Professor Adams and associate head, Hans van Dijk, who made this a home for a whole generation of the Grace Hopper community,” Lewis said. 

The welcome ceremony took place in the Hopper dining hall, and Moyn’s announcement was met with applause from Hopplites. 

Moyn punctuated his speech with humor, joking that he would be asking serious questions such as one of his “current obsessions: why do some other colleges have soft serve ice cream?”

However, Moyn also underscored more serious topics, including the importance of accepting differences within the college, especially amid the upcoming national presidential election next fall. 

Madelyn Mao ’25 emphasized how Moyn will have big shoes to fill at Grace Hopper College. 

“I think that we are all going to be really sad that Head Adams is leaving because she was such a great head of college,” Mao told the News. “She always let us into her home, she always talked with us and got to know us and I feel like we also really got to know her. As Professor Moyn said, he is going to kind of play the same role as Head Adams did for us.”

After his speech, Moyn lingered in the dining hall to interact with students and staff who attended the announcement. As attendees left the dining hall they were given jam-filled cookies featuring Yale’s signature Y.

Grace Hopper College is located at 189 Elm St.