Our Office of Belonging, Community, and Connection (OBCC) team promotes belonging, fosters community, and facilitates connection across Harvard Kennedy School.
Please see the message below from ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Dean Jeremy Weinstein for more information about this office and its mission. We welcome your ideas, input, and support for these important efforts.
Message from Dean Jeremy Weinstein on ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø’ Commitment to Belonging, Community, and Connection
July 18, 2025
Dear ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Community,
A shared commitment to public service is one of the distinctive strengths of Harvard Kennedy School. Together, we are dedicated to helping public institutions deliver and to improving the quality of people’s lives. To excel in this work, our community must include, embrace, and engage individuals from a broad array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. The relationships forged at ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø are integral to our students’ education, and the ability to engage across difference is the essence of leadership in democratic societies.
The hard work of fostering such a community is a longstanding project for the School, as is true for Harvard University and for every institution of higher education. This work requires ongoing self-reflection around enduring questions about who is here and who is not, which viewpoints and perspectives can be comfortably expressed and which are felt to be less welcome, who thrives in our community and who is left feeling on the outside, what we teach in the classroom and what might be missing, and where we are and where we are not connected in the broader world. In asking these questions, we endeavor to forge a community in which all of us are exposed to and welcome the widest range of ideas and perspectives, however uncomfortable and different from our own, to challenge our views, sharpen our thinking, and help us grow as students, professionals, and leaders.
In recent years, ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø has made important progress in building a more welcoming community in which all can feel a sense of belonging. In particular, we have taken important steps to increase access, deepen our sense of community, broaden our curricular offerings, and expand our research agendas. More recently, we have also focused on efforts to facilitate candid and constructive conversations that enable people to communicate with openness, honesty, and understanding across different identities and perspectives.
Informed by our experiences and guided by Harvard’s updated university-wide priorities, we will carry forward this work through a newly renamed and reimagined Office of Belonging, Community, and Connection. With a revised mandate, the office will serve as a school-wide resource, working with the leadership, core departments, and research centers to:
- Promote belonging, by ensuring that people of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives have access to and can participate fully in what ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø has to offer;
- Foster community, by promoting shared values, including openness and pluralism;
- Facilitate connection, by building skills and supporting candid, meaningful, and productive engagement across difference, both on- and off-campus.
With Dr. Robbin Chapman’s announcement of her departure, I will begin a search for a new leader of this effort in the coming weeks. This work will be led in the interim by Sarah Wald, who currently serves as counselor to the Dean, and Harrison Nekoroski, who will serve as the office’s Associate Director. They will work closely with others in the ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø community involved in ongoing initiatives in these areas.
We have important work ahead as we continue to grapple with enduring questions about what defines us as a community and how we relate to the world outside of Harvard. There will be important opportunities to engage as we set priorities and shape the path ahead. Throughout this process, we will draw on the perspectives of faculty, staff, and students to inform our search and there will be multiple opportunities to provide input and feedback as we develop our new strategy. As always, thank you for your commitment to the School and your ongoing partnership.
Best,
Jeremy