Princeton's Smith Takes Helm At Human Resources Dennis O'Shea ----------------------------------- Homewood News and Information The first task, the university's new vice president of human resources says, is to listen. "I don't believe I come with all the answers," Audrey Smith said. "I have a broad background in human resources, and lots of experience. But I would hope to talk with enough people to be able to identify the issues and then work collaboratively with them to develop the solutions." Smith, currently vice president for human resources at Princeton University, will join Johns Hopkins Nov. 1, succeeding Edgar E. Roulhac, who has served as interim vice president since November 1994. "It's a pleasure to welcome Audrey Smith to Hopkins," said Daniel Nathans, interim president. "Her role here--helping us enhance an environment where everyone can work effectively and with real satisfaction--is critical to the future of the university." "Audrey Smith has a wonderful track record in human resources," said Eugene S. Sunshine, senior vice president for administration, to whom Smith will report. "She's a terrific team player, knowledgeable and well-skilled and an extremely effective person in a university environment. "She is the perfect person to maintain the momentum we've established in such areas as career training and development, work environment issues, revision of our job classification system, and diversity," Sunshine said. "She is also the right person to maintain the quality and breadth of our benefits program." Smith, at Princeton since 1989, has led a review of the university's benefits program in an effort to provide better value to employees and the university. She is also known for creative approaches to minority and women's concerns, including an apprenticeship program for minority employees. She worked with the university's provost and dean of the faculty to create a formal sexual harassment policy. "When I visited Hopkins, I felt good about the place," Smith said. "I felt good about the kinds of values people talked about, about what the university is trying to accomplish ... in diversity, in trying to address the issues of the 21st century. ... I would like to be a part of that." Smith, who grew up in Maryland, said she looks forward to returning for a position at Hopkins, which she said "has always been a very special place to me." She also said she is eager for the challenge of tackling human resources issues in a university with roughly four times as many employees as Princeton's 5,000. "It will be a new challenge to me, in that Hopkins is structured in a very different way than Princeton, very decentralized," she said. "There will be new issues to address, and I'll need to look at the issues in a different way than I have at Princeton, which is very centrally organized." But Smith doesn't expect radical change in her approach to the job. She is known at Princeton for maintaining an open door to employees, and hopes to find ways to do that in a larger setting. She also is determined to work closely with managers and staffers throughout the university. "One of the things I try to do is find out first what the goal is," she said. "Frequently, personnel offices in the past really served to make sure people abided by procedure; it was a policeman's role. "That's not the role of human resources today, in my view," she says. "We're here to help people develop and manage their resources. We need to have their input on policy and programs as we develop them." ***************************************************************** Roulhac Kept Human Resources On Track Edgar E. Roulhac, interim vice president for human resources since Jimmy Jones resigned from the university last year, will return to his permanent position as the university's vice provost for academic services. In that role, he focuses on university-wide issues involving programs for part-time adult students and oversees interdivisional centers for part-time education in Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County. "I want to express my appreciation to Ed Roulhac for the exceptional job he has done in Human Resources over the past months," said Eugene S. Sunshine, senior vice president for administration. "He has been committed to the task and succeeded magnificently in keeping the operation on track." *****************************************************************