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Letters to the Community

Messages from President Janet L. Steinmayer

Community-Wide Communications from President Janet L. Steinmayer

President Steinmayer wearing a striped blazer on Brattle Campus


Dear Members of the Lesley Community,

One of my goals as President of Lesley University is to keep students, parents, alumni, and friends up-to-date on everything that is happening at Lesley—from the things that affect us all, to the big decisions we make—and to do it with the highest level of transparency as possible. 

This archive collects my community-wide communications since I began to serve Lesley University as President in July of 2019. 

Sincerely,

Janet L. Steinmayer

Communications since 2019

We update this page regularly, with newer communications appearing at the top of this list.

Speeches

  • Commencement 2022 Morning Ceremony Speech

    Welcome & Congratulations

    On behalf of Hans Strauch and the entire Board of Trustees, I welcome you all to this year’s Commencement ceremony and extend a jubilant congratulations to:

    • our multi-talented graduates
    • their proud families and guests,
    • our dedicated faculty and professional staff,
    • our distinguished honorary degree recipient: Geeta Pradhan

    Congregants

    This morning, we are celebrating students earning doctoral and master’s degrees and certificates of advanced study from our Graduate School of Education and our Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences.

    In the afternoon, we will celebrate students earning master’s bachelor’s and associate’s degrees

    To the Class of 2022, what a day of celebration for all you have achieved in these momentous times!

    And to the alumni from the Classes of 2020 and 2021 who have returned today to cross the stage, how wonderful to have you back so we can celebrate your achievements in person!

    Class of 2022, I hope that sharing the spotlight with members from the two other classes from the 2020s more than triples the pride and warmth you will feel as you cross the stage today.

    Reflection on the Times

    So, as we begin the ceremony today, let us pause to remember the loved ones that the pandemic has taken from us — family members and friends who might otherwise have been here today — as well the victims of wars and violent hate crimes, most recently the mass shooting in Buffalo.

    *Pause*

    There is no doubt that at school graduations and commencements across the globe, speakers will observe that we are living through extraordinary times.

    The shock waves keep coming, and the demands on us to adapt and to be flexible and resilient keep mounting.

    To survive and to thrive under such conditions,

    • we must collaborate with even greater compassion, courage, and creativity;
    • we must redouble our efforts to collaborate across differences of culture and perspective;
    • we must expand and deepen the ways we connect with each other as individual humans living in community.

     

    And, above all, we must restore and embrace our most human connections.

    Lesley’s “Secret Sauce”

    Fostering these vital human connections — preparing our students to be practitioners in these arts — is what sets a Lesley education apart.

    The depth and breadth of these connections flavors the Lesley experience.

    Lesley’s “secret sauce” is blended in the myriad ways you have learned to collaborate across disciplines and differences to produce a richer and more satisfying “meal.”

    Whether your studies focused on education, psychology and counseling, social work, mindfulness, the expressive therapies, or some combination of these, you have learned the value of making and strengthening human connections. And you are ready to share this bountiful feast with your community.

    With national shortages of teachers, mental health counselors and social workers, and with our collective yearning for the expressive and healing powers of the arts, a Lesley education has never been more in demand or more satisfying to share.

    You are the first responders to our most fundamental human needs:

    • the need to be inspired by wise and caring teachers;
    • the need to be supported by skilled and empathic counselors;
    • the need to be moved and uplifted by creative expression.

     

    The future of our communities depends more than ever on the skills and perspectives you have developed during your time at Lesley.

    Our bruised and imperfect world is hungry for what you can, and will, bring to the table.

    Lifelong Support

    But we know that the essential work you each will do to feed your community is likely to be draining, and to leave you hungry, too.

    Practitioners in the critically needed and demanding fields that you’re entering will need a lifetime of learning and development, regular opportunities for renewal, and new sources of inspiration.

    Fortunately, opportunities to continue your education and to deepen your connection to Lesley will not end once you cross the stage today.

    As alumna-trustee Lynda-Lee Sheridan, a past president of the Alumni Association, will soon note, the value of your Lesley education will continue to grow as you make connections and discover inspiration from within our diverse network of over 90,000 talented alumni.

    Our focused commitment to growing community partnerships, like the one we are launching with Riverside Community Care, to open a behavioral health center on our Doble Campus, will create reciprocal links between the university and employers and enable our students and alumni to forge lasting and lifelong connections.

    Partnerships will provide students with accessible pathways to meaningful careers while helping employers train and recruit the skilled and caring professionals their communities need and create new avenues for research to share with future Lesley students.

    Whether you stay in one field or change occupations, as many people do over their working lives — we will build programs not only to launch you in your career, but to create a banquet that will sustain you through your entire professional arc.

    Finding Inspiration

    By now you have noticed the culinary language that is sprinkled through these remarks. So, I will end with a brief note about five chefs who were honored in 2014 with a United States stamp series: Joyce Chen, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, James Beard and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.

    Each of them is now credited with revolutionizing American cuisine through their championship of using fresh, seasonal ingredients at a time when many women wanted to spend less time in the kitchen and were enthralled with the modern convenience of the compartmentalized frozen “TV Dinner”:

    Joyce Chen, a fellow Cantabridgean, for popularizing authentic Chinese cuisine.

    Julia Child, also famously from Cambridge, for bringing French cooking to the American kitchen

    Edna Lewis, as the grand dame of southern cooking.

    James Beard, for being the Dean of American cuisine based on his championing of native American ingredients.

    And Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, a founder of ground-breaking gourmet store Dean & Deluca, for master-minding South American cooking and bringing tapas to America.

    Yet each of them overcame fiercely-set cultural barriers to achieve what they did:

    Joyce Chen, as an emigree from Communist China and single mother.

    Julia Child as an unlikely female TV star with her mature age and unusual height.

    Edna Lewis, as the daughter of emancipated slaves and the first African American to use her own name, race and gender in publishing a cookbook.

    And James Beard and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, in being gay at a time when it, for instance, was reason for Beard to be expelled from Reed College.

    But they succeeded, each of them. because they persisted, just like the Lesley motto: Perissem Ni Perstitissem (“I would have perished had I not persisted”).

    There is a poignant moment in a recent HBO series about Julia Child when her husband sums up what was making her TV show, “The French Chef” such an unexpected hit. He says, “You are teaching them how to taste life, and they are listening.”

    Call to Action

    So, as you close this chapter of your Lesley experience, these are my wishes for you:

    I wish that having learned from our wonderful faculty, staff and community to taste life, that you will continue to savor life in all its complex flavors.

    I wish that you will use your knowledge and zest for life to enhance and improve the lives of others.

    I wish that you will persist, as Julia did, to bring your vision to life.

    And I wish that you will make every day count.

    Great Day Closing

    As one of the speakers in this year’s Thought Leadership series, author and artist Ekua Holmes, said, quoting a character in one of her books, “Don’t wait to have a great day, create one.”

    I think we can all agree that today is a great day for the Lesley community.

    I hope we each will commit to making tomorrow a great day too, in whatever ways we can, for as many people as we can.

    Congratulations again to the Lesley Classes of 2022, 2021 and 2020!

    Graduates, I’ll see you shortly when you cross the stage.

  • Commencement 2022 Afternoon Ceremony Speech

    Welcome & Congratulations

    On behalf of Hans Strauch and the entire Board of Trustees, I welcome you all to this year’s Commencement ceremony and extend a jubilant congratulations to:

    • our multi-talented graduates
    • their proud families and guests,
    • our dedicated faculty and professional staff, and
    • our distinguished honorary degree recipients: Shelly Lowe and Olivia Parker.

    Congregants

    This afternoon, we celebrate students earning master’s bachelor’s and associate’s degrees from our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and our College of Art and Design and our students earning certificates of completion from the Threshold Program.

    To the Class of 2022, what a day of celebration for all you have achieved in these momentous times!

    And to the alumni from the Classes of 2020 and 2021 who have returned today to cross the stage, how wonderful to have you back so we can celebrate your achievements in person!

    And as a mother of an alumnus of the Threshold Program, seeing our Threshold students cross the stage at Commencement for the very first time in the university’s history brings tears to my eyes each time I say that.

    Class of 2022, I hope that sharing the spotlight with members from the two other classes from the 2020s and Threshold more than triples the pride and warmth you will feel as you cross the stage today.

    Let’s give all the exceptional students that we will celebrate today a round of applause. Congratulations!

    Reflection on the Times

    So, as we begin the ceremony today, let us pause to remember the loved ones that the pandemic has taken from us — family members and friends who might otherwise have been here today — as well the victims of wars and violent hate crimes, most recently the mass shooting in Buffalo.

    *Pause*

    There is no doubt that at school graduations and commencements across the globe, speakers will observe that we are living through extraordinary times.

    The shock waves keep coming, and the demands on us to adapt and to be flexible and resilient keep mounting.

    To survive and to thrive under such conditions,

    • we must collaborate with even greater compassion, courage, and creativity;
    • we must redouble our efforts to collaborate across differences of culture and perspective; and
    • we must expand and deepen the ways we connect with each other as individual humans living in community.

     

    And, above all, we must restore and embrace our most human connections.

    Lesley’s “Secret Sauce”

    Fostering these vital human connections — preparing our students to be practitioners in these arts — is what sets a Lesley education apart.

    The depth and breadth of these connections flavors the Lesley experience.

    Lesley’s “secret sauce” is blended in the myriad ways you have learned to collaborate across disciplines and differences to produce a richer and more satisfying “meal.”

    Whether your studies focused on the liberal or visual arts, education, psychology, social work, creative writing, business, or some combination of these, you have learned the value of making and strengthening human connections. And you are ready to share this bountiful feast with your community.

    With national shortages of teachers, mental health counselors and social workers, and with our collective yearning for the expressive and healing powers of the arts, a Lesley education has never been more in demand or more satisfying to share.

    You are the first responders to our most fundamental human needs:

    • the need to be inspired by wise and caring teachers;
    • the need to be supported by skilled and empathic counselors;
    • the need to be moved and uplifted by creative expression.

     

    The future of our communities depends more than ever on the skills and perspectives you have developed during your time at Lesley.

    Our bruised and imperfect world is hungry for what you can, and will, bring to the table.

    Lifelong Support

    But we know that the essential work you each will do to feed your community is likely to be draining, and to leave you hungry, too.

    Practitioners in the critically needed and demanding fields that you’re entering will need a lifetime of learning and development, regular opportunities for renewal, and new sources of inspiration.

    Fortunately, opportunities to continue your education and to deepen your connection to Lesley will not end once you cross the stage today.

    As alumna-trustee Lynda-Lee Sheridan, a past president of the Alumni Association, will soon note, the value of your Lesley education will continue to grow as you make connections and discover inspiration from within our diverse network of over 90,000 talented alumni.

    Our focused commitment to growing community partnerships, like the one we are launching with Riverside Community Care, to open a behavioral health center on our Doble Campus, will create reciprocal links between the university and employers and enable our students and alumni to forge lasting and lifelong connections.

    Partnerships will provide students with accessible pathways to meaningful careers while helping employers train and recruit the skilled and caring professionals their communities need and create new avenues for research to share with future Lesley students.

    Whether you stay in one field or change occupations, as many people do over their working lives — we will build programs not only to launch you in your career, but to create a banquet that will sustain you through your entire professional arc.

    Finding Inspiration

    By now you have noticed the culinary language that is sprinkled through these remarks. So, I will end with a brief note about five chefs who were honored in 2014 with a United States stamp series: Joyce Chen, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, James Beard and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.

    Each of them is now credited with revolutionizing American cuisine through their championship of using fresh, seasonal ingredients at a time when many women wanted to spend less time in the kitchen and were enthralled with the modern convenience of the compartmentalized frozen “TV Dinner”:

    Joyce Chen, a fellow Cantabridgean, for popularizing authentic Chinese cuisine.

    Julia Child, also famously from Cambridge, for bringing French cooking to the American kitchen.

    Edna Lewis, as the grand dame of southern cooking.

    James Beard, for being the Dean of American cuisine based on his championing of native American ingredients.

    And Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, a founder of ground-breaking gourmet store Dean & Deluca, for master-minding South American cooking and bringing tapas to America.

    Yet each of them overcame fiercely-set cultural barriers to achieve what they did:

    Joyce Chen, as an emigree from Communist China and single mother.

    Julia Child as an unlikely female TV star with her mature age and unusual height.

    Edna Lewis, as the daughter of emancipated slaves and the first African American to use her own name, race and gender in publishing a cookbook.

    And James Beard and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, in being gay at a time when it, for instance, was reason for Beard to be expelled from Reed College.

    But they succeeded, each of them. because they persisted, just like the Lesley motto: Perissem Ni Perstitissem (“I would have perished had I not persisted”).

    There is a poignant moment in a recent HBO series about Julia Child when her husband sums up what was making her TV show, “The French Chef” such an unexpected hit. He says, “You are teaching them how to taste life, and they are listening.”

    Call to Action

    So, as you close this chapter of your Lesley experience, these are my wishes for you:

    I wish that having learned from our wonderful faculty, staff and community to taste life, that you will continue to savor life in all its complex flavors.

    I wish that you will use your knowledge and zest for life to enhance and improve the lives of others.

    I wish that you will persist, as Julia did, to bring your vision to life.

    And I wish that you will make every day count.

    Great Day Closing

    As one of the speakers in this year’s Thought Leadership series, author and artist Ekua Holmes, said, quoting a character in one of her books, “Don’t wait to have a great day, create one.”

    I think we can all agree that today is a great day for the Lesley community.

    I hope we each will commit to making tomorrow a great day too, in whatever ways we can, for as many people as we can.

    Congratulations again to the Lesley Classes of 2022, 2021 and 2020!

    Graduates, I’ll see you shortly when you cross the stage.

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