“We’re very excited about this — it’s a great opportunity for our students,” Peter Salovey, the president of Yale, said by phone Thursday. “Yale is very proud that we educate leaders for all sectors of society throughout the world. Secretary Kerry certainly fits that description, and he wants to return to Yale and be a part of the next generation of leaders.”

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Most of the major problems that face society — such as climate change, violent extremism and failing states — need global solutions and an interdisciplinary approach, Salovey said. So Kerry will be pulling together experts from across many fields to think about those problems in new ways. It’s an educational platform, not a political one, he added.

The Kerry Initiative has several elements, said Jim Levinsohn, director of the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, which will work in partnership with the new initiative. Kerry will be speaking to classes in various schools such as Yale Law School, School of Management, Divinity School, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the Jackson Institute. He’ll host conferences each year, probably one in New Haven and one elsewhere, to bring together scholars and other experts. And he’ll work with a team of undergraduate and graduate students, Kerry Fellows, who will help him with his writing and his research.

Kerry did not want to be a figurehead at Yale. “I just love the fact that he wants to be in a classroom environment, surrounded by our students,” Salovey said, “because I know their interactions with him are going to be illuminating and inspiring. I hope that’s the case for him as well, when he interacts with our students.”

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Another member of the Obama administration, former vice president Joe Biden, announced last week that he would lead two academic centers, one at the University of Pennsylvania and one at the University of Delaware, studying both foreign and domestic policy.

“Yale’s been a part of my life since I first walked on campus as a teenager and heard Allard Lowenstein challenge my generation to get involved and make a difference,” Kerry said in a written statement. “This is where I first raised my hand as a junior and pledged to defend the Constitution, and it’s where I first debated and struggled with issues of war and peace.

“Teaching, researching, convening, engaging and collaborating with young people and together wrestling with the world’s most complex issues is an exciting chapter in the journey that began for me in New Haven.

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“I’m grateful to President Salovey for his enthusiasm about what we can do together as a Yale community and how we can empower the next generation of idealists and diplomats and activists to be a part of public service and a cause bigger than themselves.”