Two former staff members in the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) are speaking out about the office's environment and management.
Dean Gendron (LA '96), who left in October citing "medical reasons," and Tim Hegan, who was fired in December, join students and residential staff who have criticized the office this year.
While Residential Assistants (RAs) focused their complaints on communication, the staff members claim the atmosphere of the office and University priorities are more to blame for the problems.
Other turnovers included Associate Director of Occupancy Management Lorraine Toppi's early retirement in March, and Programming Assistant Susan Storm's transfer to a position in the Office of Institutional Research.
ORLL director Yolanda King has hired temporary employees and Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said the vacancies would be filled by the time staff training begins in August. He said King was in "early interviews" for the positions.
"We look forward to being fully staffed next year and working together as a team full of excellence," King said.
Gendron worked periodically with the ORLL beginning in 1993, when he served as an RA during his sophomore year. After attending graduate school, he was made a permanent member of the ORLL staff, holding the position of assistant director of experimental learning for about three years.
What drove him out, he said, was a combination of King's lack of professionalism and collegiality, as well as festering issues about the role the ORLL would play on campus.
Gendron said the "health problems" he cited were a cover and represented the best way to leave without causing damage to the community.
Hegan was the Resident Director (RD) for Hill and West halls. He was dismissed from his day job at Student Services in Dowling Hall amidst allegations of improper processing of student forms - charges he denies. At the same time, he was dismissed from his position at the ORLL.
Reitman said he was unable to comment on Hegan or Gendron's departure from the University.
Although Hegan was fired from ORLL, the RAs in the building hosted an "appreciation dinner" in his honor on May 10. Approximately 80 students from Hill and West gathered at Nick's Pizzeria on Boston Avenue.
Sophomore Nathan Papazian said the event was "completely positive" and students were showing their support for Hegan.
Both Hegan and Gendron said communication problems had plagued the office in the past two years. Since the arrival of King, "rather than information coming into the office and the office processing that information and responding with actions, information came to the office and permanently disappeared," Gendron said.
Hegan said that questions from RAs about the alcohol policy were never answered at RA training in August. "When people asked her about what this means or what that means, she said 'why don't we get back to you on that.' She collected the index cards and never said anything."
Without follow-ups the situation left "staff and students without closure to their concerns and denigrated the reputation of the office's competence to engage regular matters of course," Gendron said.
King placed some of the blame on the vacancies in the office. "This year the ORLL has been short staffed, which has had some impact on our day to day operations," she said. "As we move forward into next year we will be fully staffed and will continue to provide quality service to students and staff members."
Staff members say that under King, the ORLL has moved from a collaborative style to a more hierarchical one. Gendron said King made changes to the residential duty teams after they were selected by a panel of RDs and Gendron.
"She doesn't have a respect for the differences people represent. She doesn't represent people's diversity and their diversity of opinion," Hegan said.
King denied this, noting that the office was dedicated to "the promotion of appreciation for all individuals while acknowledging differences."
Gendron also blamed King for the decision not to continue an Internet database for filing incident reports. Gendron developed the system, but King decided not to migrate the system to the school's new server.
One RA called the online system "more sufficient" and said that it resulted in decreased response time for incidents. Hegan called it a "great medium" for alerting campus authorities, including the police and Dean of Students office ,immediately after an event occurred.
"This year we temporarily moved some of our reports offline," King said. "As we continue to assess and restructure our processes and systems, we will incorporate the technology that provides the appropriate support."
King said in a statement last month that the new assistant director of housing will "move forward in automating housing online in the future at Tufts."
The technological regression was just one way that Gendron said the actions of the department failed to move forward during King's tenure. "Yolanda, unlike the rest of the professional staff, often proclaimed her style and philosophy as being archetypal of student affairs theory. We often witnessed these proclamations in public, but rarely were these self- aggrandizing sermons supported with any relevant or practical action or follow-through," he said.
Reitman admitted that a thorough review was necessary, but said change had been delayed by turnover. "We need to look at the standard practices of [the ORLL]," he said. "We had not looked at them in the absence of a director."
In an attempt to bring expertise to the office, Reitman said that the new staff members will have advanced degrees in higher education studies. However, he said that attracting candidates for RD positions with degrees was not realistic because of the position's compensation.
For Hegan, an effective office would have to depart drastically from the recent past. "I really don't know how to describe the profound silliness and the complete disarray that [King] brought to the office," he said, "so much so that [King] wanted to get rid of people who were doing excellent work."
