Nicholas Christakis has resigned from Silliman

Head of Silliman College Nicholas Christakis has resigned from his position.

He sent out an announcement to students at Silliman and just tweeted his statement.

Christakis made headlines last semester after the debacle following his wife Erika Christakis sending out an email about Halloween costumes, which culminated in Nicholas being shouted at by a Yale junior.

His full statement reads:

Dear Sillimanders

Last week, I gave my resignation to President Salovey and will be stepping down from my role as Head of Silliman College, effective July, 2016. I thank President Salovey and Dean Holloway for the opportunity to serve in this role and look forward to continuing my work as a professor at Yale and as director of the Human Nature Lab and co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. Erika and I have devoted our professional lives to advocating for all young people. We have great respect for every member of our community, friend and critic alike. We remain hopeful that students at Yale can express themselves and engage complex ideas within an intellectually plural community. But we feel it is time to return full-time to our respective fields of public health and early childhood education.

This was a difficult decision, as I am myself a proud beneficiary of Yale’s residential college system. I still believe wholeheartedly that the residential colleges are the cornerstone of Yale’s unique educational program. It is within these walls – through the experience of being both embraced and challenged – that we can best accomplish the mission of Yale College: “to educate (students) through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic and creative capacities to the fullest.”

In friendship and good faith, this remains my aspiration for all.

With every good wish,

Nicholas