Dear students of Timothy Dwight College:
I write to let you know that after a few months of wrestling with the decision, I’ve informed Dean Holloway and President Salovey that I will not be seeking to renew my appointment as Master of the college. I will therefore step down this coming June.
I’ve been very much of two minds about another term. I love TD, our community life here, and the privilege of serving as your Master. It’s impossible to convey how many moments of challenge, exploration, and exhilaration that Sally and I have shared with you, and to what a profound degree we’ve treasured your friendship and learned from our experiences together. These are goods of a kind that I am most reluctant to surrender.
At the same time, I will be completing in June not only my five-year term as Master, but also my eighteenth year of unbroken service as a senior administrator. My Yale roles have been compelling, and they have also been demanding. While no one is granted unlimited scope for addressing everything he would like to do in life, I have been feeling keenly the reality of “time’s chariot hurrying near.” So I am choosing now to move away from full-time responsibilities and residence in the college, in order to focus on personal and professional projects I have long wanted to undertake and long delayed.
Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing through our current improvements in TD, engaging strongly with the community for the rest of the academic year, and helping to welcome and orient a new Master sometime in the late spring. I know that our experienced college staff, our able new dean and our TD student leadership will carry forward the flash of spirit that has always animated this exceptional place.
There are two great rewards for a career at Yale. One comes from helping to sustain an extraordinary community, whose scope and life far exceed those of any individual granted the opportunity to be of service here. The other is the assurance that one has joined permanently good company, in this particular case not only the other Masters who have preceded and will succeed me in Timothy Dwight, but also the friends made in our courtyard, never to be lost or forgotten.
Àshe! Master Brenzel