Tim Tai

Yale is hiring an ombudsperson to provide confidential support to faculty, staff and graduate and professional students regarding concerns about the University environment, President Maurie McInnis announced last Tuesday.

The announcement came in a message addressed to those groups and posted to the president’s office’s website. The ombudsperson will act independently of the University’s existing “procedures and administrative offices,” McInnis wrote.

The role of the ombudsperson, according to McInnis’ message, will be to serve as an impartial actor who informs faculty and staff, as well as graduate and professional students, of their rights under the law and university regulations. The ombudsperson will report directly to McInnis and will not serve undergraduates, according to the announcement.

“I am prioritizing this role—even during our period of restrained spending—because of the comments and suggestions I have received from all of you,” McInnis wrote. She cited the community feedback she received during her first year as president, including on “administrative and conflict resolution processes.”

The University is expected to lose $280 million next fiscal year to an elevated endowment tax of 8 percent, signed into law on July 4 by President Donald Trump. On Sept. 30, Provost Scott Strobel, Senior Vice President for Operations Jack Callahan Jr. ’80 and Chief Financial Officer Stephen Murphy ’87 released plans for reduced budget targets and a retirement incentive program for managerial and professional staff.

The establishment of the ombudsperson position comes after years of advocacy from faculty as well as graduate and professional students. 

In the spring of 2023, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Science Senate, or FAS-SEAS Senate, convened a committee geared towards advocating for the creation of an ombuds office. Around the same time, the Graduate Student Assembly and Graduate and Professional Student Senate passed a resolution “calling for a University ombuds office.”

Yale has stood apart from peer institutions in its lack of an ombuds office. The News reported in 2013 that Yale and Dartmouth were the only two Ivy League schools without an ombudsperson. Dartmouth appointed its first ombudsperson in 2022.

Nathan Suri GRD ’25 ’28, the chair of the Graduate Student Assembly, wrote in an email to the News that the group’s executive board applauded the establishment of the position.

“This role will provide graduate students and other members of Yale’s academic populace with direct access to critical resolutions that will improve the academic environment,” Suri wrote.

Saman Haddad LAW ’26, the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, said in a phone interview, that the University’s current conflict resolution system is “very decentralized.”

 “An ombudsperson helps you navigate that system, which is otherwise very unclear,” he said.

But he expressed concern about the title “ombudsperson,” noting that students might be unfamiliar with it. While he expects the office may see “limited uptake” at first, he believes that choosing a more accessible name and hiring a “high quality candidate” could help overcome that challenge.

Yale has several University-wide offices and centers intended to address misconduct, discrimination and complaints, including the Office of Institutional Equity and Accessibility, or OIEA, the Title IX Office and Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Education Center, or SHARE.

Students and staff who have contacted the OIEA have criticized the office for slow responses, opaque processes and disappointing results.

In 2019, the office dismissed a Yale Hospitality employee’s allegations against a former hospitality director without meeting with the employee, a News investigation last year found. The office found that the former administrator had committed “severe” sexual misconduct in another incident in 2023, and he left Yale last year.

Prior to her role as Yale’s president, McInnis served as president of Stony Brook University, as well as in administrative positions at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia. All three other universities had an ombudsperson role during her time there.

“The ombudsperson will serve as a neutral advocate for fair treatment and processes, operating under strict confidentiality and helping faculty, staff, and G&P students understand their rights and options based on all laws and university policies and procedures,” McInnis wrote in the announcement last week, referring to graduate and professional students.

She added that the official will also “provide informal dispute resolution services” and “offer referrals” to related resources.

Merle Waxman, who was the ombudsperson for the School of Medicine for over 30 years, endorsed the change in an email to the News.

“I am delighted to hear that Yale is moving forward on this important initiative,” Waxman wrote. “Yale is an incredibly wonderful institution, but even the best institutions can benefit from the Ombudsman concept.”

McInnis wrote last Tuesday that she has established a search advisory committee for the position. The committee is chaired by Elizabeth Conklin, the University’s associate vice president for equity and accessibility and its Title IX coordinator, and David Post, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor.

Conklin and Post wrote in a joint statement to the News that the committee planned to meet this week to discuss the qualities it will seek in candidates, emphasizing skills in active listening, mediation and negotiation, as well as the ability to remain impartial, independent and credible.

“In her first year at Yale, President McInnis heard many faculty, students, and staff speak of the need for a university-wide ombudsperson, and she recognized the value of an ombudsperson for the Yale community,” Conklin and Post wrote.

Conklin and Post noted that candidates for the role must have certification through the International Ombuds Association or “eligibility to obtain certification.”

Other members of the search committee include doctoral candidate Alex Rich GRD ’27, psychiatry professor Robert Rohrbaugh MED ’82, and Vice Provost for Health Affairs Stephanie Spangler. McInnis noted in her message that the committee would be soliciting comments from community members and linked a webform for people to submit feedback.

McInnis also noted that she would be establishing a “new council to review Yale’s faculty and staff employment policies and procedures.” The group will consider these practices and their support of Yale’s mission, “academic excellence,” the University’s compliance with laws and support for faculty and staff.

McInnis listed the eight members of the council — four professors and four University administrators. She wrote that their work will be completed “by the end of the spring semester” and that she would provide an update on both of the initiatives she announced “by the end of the academic year.”

The word “ombuds” comes from the Swedish word “ombudsman,” meaning “representative.”