Jane E. Dee

When Assistant Professor Kristina Talbert-Slagle, PhD, opened her spring 2026 course, Evidence-Based Decision Making in Global Health, she issued an unusual challenge: instead of the traditional final paper, students could choose to build something different — a public health communication project, delivered to a larger, general audience. Four students said yes immediately. “We realized how important health communication is right now, especially within public health,” said Grace Williams, MPH ’26.

Yale School of Public Health leadership led the design of the school’s new ceremonial mace that incorporates deep historical symbolism and celebrates the school’s history, vision, and mission, as well as its status as Yale’s newest independent school. The new mace will make its debut at Yale’s 325th commencement on May 18.

Can you remember a time when you shared something that you later found out was not true or trustworthy? “It’s all too easy to talk about the crisis of trust as something that happens to other people,” said Dean Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, who posed the question in her opening remarks at a conference about rebuilding trust in public health on February 10. She emphasized the need to recognize our own roles in the decline of trust in public health.