Yves-Rose SaintDic, the new director of the Office of Equal Employment and Affirmative Action, says her office has a vital mission at Tufts - even if you've never heard of it. And with a new president eager to open Tufts' doors to minority faculty applicants, SaintDic is approaching her work with enthusiasm.
SaintDic, a Fletcher alumna, assumed her post on Oct. 1, and is already working to craft the University's Affirmative Action Plan, an annual outline of the progress departments are making in fair hiring practices. While SaintDic concedes that forced "affirmative action" can be met with negative reaction, she says the Action Plan is only a guide to departments, not a list of mandatory procedures.
"I provide resources to people. I can't make them do anything," SaintDic said.
SaintDic's office works to ensure a level playing field for applicants in University job openings. The difficulty, she says, is understanding how to make the hiring process as fair as possible. An important component of fair hiring procedures is knowing where to advertise a job opening. Is the Boston Globe sufficient? How about industry-specific magazines? What about radio stations?
To make the hiring process as easy as possible for University personnel, SaintDic publishes a list of media outlets where an employment listing will get the widest exposure. It is often not obvious where listings should be placed, according to SaintDic. Consider a situation where a Tufts employer posts job openings on a website. Though the Internet seems ubiquitous, it is less accessible to some groups in America.
"People seem to forget there is an Internet divide," SaintDic said, adding that not all qualified applicants are equally net-savvy, leaving Tufts with a smaller, less-diverse pool of applicants.
The Office of Equal Opportunity is not trying to undermine a rigorous qualification process for University jobs, SaintDic said. In fact, Tufts has no requirements or quotas mandating the hiring of minority applicants. Its job is to ensure that minority applicants are targeted in the hiring practice.
In recent years, this equal-opportunity hiring system is becoming less of a requirement and more of a driving market force across the country. Generally, this is a reflection of a real need for diversity, SaintDic said. For example, a busy 911-call center staff increasingly needs to include multi-lingual call handlers.
But it is also a reflection of the University's goal of increasing its international stature. In preparing its students for a globalized world, Tufts needs to focus on having a representative faculty, SaintDic says. "It's the nature of the business, and Tufts needs to stay competitive," she said. "You can't be doing business on an international basis without having faculty that is globally-reaching."
For now, SaintDic has no major changes planned for her office, which was previously headed by Barbara Wooten, who left for the Boston Globe in January 2001. Meeting with over 50 Tufts staff and faculty in her first month, SaintDic says she is trying to get a feel for what the Equal Employment Office is doing well - and what it can do better.
One concern SaintDic wants to address is the perception that Tufts has a low retention rate of minority faculty. She has requested a report on this subject, but the University has historically not maintained this kind of data, so she will have to contact departing faculty to discover their reasons for leaving. "Why are people leaving? They may feel isolated," SaintDic said, noting that some departments have few or no minority faculty.
SaintDic also wants to increase the visibility of her office and improve communications with the rest of the University, particularly regarding the Affirmative Action Plan. She hopes people will view the annual report not as a scorecard, but as a plan to reach the University's employment goals.
SaintDic represents the latest in an extensive administration shake-up at Tufts that began with the announcement of former President John DiBiaggio's retirement. Since then, Tufts has hired a new president and Fletcher dean, and accepted the resignations of Vice President of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Mel Bernstein and Provost Sol Gittleman.
But with fresh faces, SaintDic said, Tufts will be able to continue moving forward. And SaintDic says she is impressed with President Larry Bacow's commitment to her mission at Tufts. "He's giving out the right message," she said. "Because he's new, he has the opportunity to do some great stuff."
Prior to working at Tufts, SaintDic spent three years as the director of the Cambridge-based Transition House and Women Education Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to those affected by domestic violence. She has served as the director of Somerville's Human Rights Commission, and worked as a consultant in the field of civil rights.
SaintDic is no stranger to Tufts, however, where she received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Fletcher in 1996. "I remember being at Fletcher and seeing the whole University," she said, adding that her recent interviews with Tufts administrators solidified her desire to work at Tufts. "Everyone I met here was amazing."
