The Executive Committee of the Department of English deeply values the contributions made by our international students, both graduate and undergraduate, to our shared academic community and to our pedagogical and research endeavors. We wish in particular to affirm our departmental commitment to students from countries singled out by Donald Trump’s January 27, 2017 executive order on immigration and to emphasize our admiration for their personal and collective courage.
Core Values
The Department of English affirms the university community’s core values and nondiscrimination policy. Our efforts to uphold these values and this policy include the explicit rejection of bigotry, discrimination, hateful rhetoric, hateful action, and intimidation in all forms, whether directed towards one’s race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, citizenship, political views, socio-economic status, veteran status, or immigration status. We support the university’s values, too, in the department’s commitment to evidence-, fact-, and reason-based inquiry; critical listening, thinking, reading, and writing; respectful discourse, including respectful dissent; freedom of expression; and the development of our capacity for mutual understanding and empathy. We work together daily with all members of our community—students, faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, administrators, and campus guests—to create an environment in which everyone feels safe in the pursuit of these objectives.

