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Joan Sullivan: 25 Years and Counting
In 1955, Joan Sullivan had just graduated from a two-year
program at Wyndham College and was seeking work. What she found was a
25-year career at Harvard. Sullivan is one of seven HSPH faculty and
staff members who are being recognized for 25 years of service at a
ceremony on May 11 at Harvard Business School.
Sullivan's 25-year career is spread over a greater number of years because she took 18 years off in the middle to raise a family, returning to HSPH in 1982.
Joan Sullivan, staff member
in the Department of Environmental Health, is one of
seven HSPHers celebrating 25 years of Harvard service.
"Things have changed a lot since I first came," she said. "When I
began, the school was based on Shattuck Street--this was before
either the Countway Library or the Kresge Building existed."
"My first job was in the Department of Cancer Control, which eventually evolved into our current Department of Environmental Health. In that job, we were conducting a survey of cigarette smokers in an attempt to learn whether smoking might damage the lungs--which goes to show how long ago that was! Working life was a little different then than now: most of the staff who worked on the Longwood campus were expected to work Saturdays, and your boss expected you to serve him coffee."
After a year in Cancer Control, Sullivan transferred to the Massachusetts General Hospital to work for a physician who was doing pediatric endocrinology research. When that physician went on sabbatical three years later, Sullivan continued her Harvard employment and moved to Shattuck Hospital to work on a newly initiated chemotherapy study.
"My responsibilities in that job were different than in my previous positions--more research and administration and less secretarial," said Sullivan. "I coordinated a double-blind experimental cancer chemotherapy study for patients with six months or less to live. I would follow their progress in the hospital, as outpatients, and after they returned to their homes.
"It was very sad, of course, but also life-affirming because these were people who had special insights into the meaning of life and how to enjoy it while one could," said Sullivan.
After working on this study for four years, Sullivan left her career at Harvard for yet a different kind of job: motherhood. "I had three children and stayed at home for 18 years," she said. "I was still a busy person though. I was a Girl Scout leader for ten years, I was active in the Cub Scouts, I was a school librarian, and I was a lunch mother.
"When I came back to HSPH to interview with Linda Fox [administrator in the Department of Environmental Health] for a job in the early 1980s, I told her all about my community activities," said Sullivan. "She later told me that she took all of those things into consideration when deciding to offer me a job."
Upon arriving in the workplace after her extended absence, Sullivan found the beginnings of the technological revolution: "People had electric typewriters! And there I was, looking for an eraser to fix my mistakes, because I'd never used a correction ribbon," said Sullivan. "And one woman in the office even had a computer on her desk."
Sullivan has worked in the Department of Environmental Health ever since, seeing that single computer evolve into numerous desktop terminals linked to a mainframe computer housed on the 12th floor of SPH I, to the ubiquitous desktop, laptop, and palmtop computers of today.
She has also seen worklife change in other ways. Most employees are no longer expected to work on Saturdays, and most supervisors no longer expect their secretaries to fetch cups of coffee. "Roles for women in the workforce have improved," said Sullivan.
Always industrious, Sullivan has continued to improve working conditions for staff through her activities with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Employees (HUCTW). As a union member, she has served on the HSPH Joint Council, a committee comprised of school staff, administration, and faculty that addresses workplace issues at the school; she has served on the union's executive board; and she is currently a member of the joint Harvard/HUCTW problem-solving team.
When asked whether she plans on celebrating 30 years of service five years hence, she is cautiously optimistic: "I'm certainly not ready to give up work! I think my time away from work while I raised my family gave me an extra appreciation of the rewards of working. I really like the people, I like the academic environment, and I enjoy being part of research that often ends up making news. I don't know if I'll be here for 30 years, but I never thought I'd be here for 25, so who knows?"
Sullivan will be honored at the 45th annual 25 Year
Recognition Ceremony on May 11. The ceremony will be hosted by
Harvard President Neil Rudenstine and features an address by Charles
Willie, the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education and fellow
honoree. Other HSPH honorees are Donald Hopkins, visiting lecturer in the
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases; William Hsiao,
K.T. Li Professor of Economics; Emil Millett, programmer analyst in
the Department of Environmental Health; R. Heather Palmer,
lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management; Stover
Snook, lecturer in the Department of Environmental Health; and
Jack Wolfson, reseach associate in the Department of
Environmental Health.
