How has your work in different industries informed your career at Yale?
My first career was as a math graduate student. I learned that if I’m going to understand something, I have to make it my own. When I was learning to be a software developer, I couldn’t just do it by listening. I had to stop online tutorials and then solve the next step myself. It’s really important to know how you learn.
When I was in school for furniture-making, I found out that it’s possible to fix your mistakes. If you’re making a table, and one of the legs doesn’t turn out right, you just make another leg. It’s the same with knitting; it’s easy to unravel the yarn to make corrections. It’s important to me that making a mistake isn’t the end of the story.
My role as a doula was all about listening to the mom and dad to understand what their desires were; how I could support them; and hearing what they weren’t saying. Attentive listening skills have served me well in the workplace. Yet, a doula is never the leader in the room, and I realized that I enjoyed being a leader. So when I changed course to become a software developer, I took on some leadership responsibilities. At iFactory, we built the Yale Information Technology Services website, and I was subsequently hired to stand up Yale’s user-experience (UX) program. I was nearly 50 years old, and it was only my second real job with a boss and a paycheck. I had so much to learn, but these experiences helped.
What does your current role, supporting the It’s Your Yale website, entail?
When I started talking with [Vice President for Technology & Campus Services] John Barden about being ready to step away from my leadership of the Operations Portfolio Management Office, he spoke with [Senior Vice President for Operations] Jack Callahan about what would be a good way to use my capabilities, and they came up with this idea.
The It’s Your Yale website is so important to employment at Yale — helping faculty and staff learn about their benefits, get what they need to do their jobs, and understand what services are available to them, both personally and professionally. Operations leadership saw an opportunity since I’ve been working to support Jack and his leadership group for a few years now. I’m familiar with the leaders, how their units work, and what their strategic goals are. In essence, I’m a bridge between very busy leaders and an active internal communications team to help make sure that the It’s Your Yale website will be everything that leadership and Internal Communications wants it to be.
What would you say to someone searching for a career?
I think it’s really important to know what makes you happy. What are your unique skills and where will your weaknesses get less in the way? I am a little relentless, and I can be obsessive about details and getting things done. I needed to be in an area where that was actually functional leverage, not dysfunctional. I think everybody’s strengths and weaknesses are very closely related. So, I drop very few balls. But sometimes I can get on people’s nerves by being a bulldozer. So where can you go that takes advantage of your strengths and weaknesses?
What’s been your proudest moment at Yale?
My proudest moment is when I was involved in digital accessibility. My father was born blind, and my grandmother was a fierce advocate for him. She advocated for him to be mainstreamed in the public schools, which was not done in the 1940s. He earned a Ph. D in music theory from the Eastman School of Music and had a long career in the music business and advocating for people with disabilities. He ended his career as the executive director of the Westside Center for Independent living in Venice, California. He passed away a year ago. I learned a lot by watching him navigate the world which assumes we’re all sighted.
Of course, it’s hard being blind. But we make it so much harder than it needs to be. We put unnecessary obstacles in people’s way, and I got to be a part of reducing those obstacles for students, faculty, staff, visitors, and parents as they interact with Yale’s digital environment.
What is your favorite part about working at Yale?
My favorite part is how much people care about their areas of responsibility. You very rarely meet somebody at Yale who isn’t inspired by the institution. You may disagree about what matters, and what the priority is, and how to get something done, but very, very few people don’t care about “the why.” Most people here really do, and I love that.
How do you see your role connecting to Yale’s mission?
I think all of our roles connect to the mission. Every single one of us is working on our to-do list, having meetings, and solving problems in whatever corner of the Yale garden we’re planted in. When I’m working on the travel management section of It’s Your Yale, for instance, my work could facilitate a researcher traveling to a research site across the world or an applicant who’s interviewing for a job and needs to know how to get from the airport to the university. You never know how what you’re putting out into the world is going to be consumed. But if you think about the content being useful to your colleagues, then the services we provide touch all the different elements of our mission.
