Haitian American educator makes history at MassBay

Serghino René

Make no mistake: Carole Berotte Joseph has a vision for Massachusetts Bay Community College.

“I have two main goals,” said Joseph. “I want to promote an educational community that fosters respect, civility and personal responsibility to enhance communication and collaboration. And I want to use meaningful assessment to promote a culture of excellence through college-wide change and civility.”

In case anyone is unclear, Joseph has her goals printed on convenient bookmarks that she hands out like candy.

It was a little over a year ago that Joseph packed her bags, her husband Andre Stines and two daughters Marjorie and Claudine, and left her home in New York City for Massachusetts to become the fourth president of the small school in Ashland.

With 33 years of academic administration experience, she bested 105 other candidates. More important, she became the first Haitian American to head a U.S. college.

Joseph is one of only 49 black women nationwide who serve as presidents of colleges and universities. Black women make up only 1.4 percent of all college presidents.

The road wasn’t easy for Joseph.

She immigrated to the United States as a young girl with her family from Port-au-Prince, Haiti during the years of the Duvalier dictatorship. As one of five children, she was encouraged by her parents at an early age to be the best.

Her Haitian background has always played a significant role in her daily life, and her interest in education and languages began in her own home.

“[My culture] is very important to me,” she explained. “I always tell students that they should be proud of who they are and never feel that their culture is less than any other. I was fortunate to grow up with parents who were very good, so I was able to develop a strong sense of self. My parents were never ashamed of speaking Kreyol, unlike a lot of Haitian parents who tell their kids to only speak French. We spoke both at home.”

She earned bachelor’s degrees (cum laude) in Spanish and education from the York College of the City University of New York (CUNY), a master’s degree (magna cum laude) in bilingual education from Fordham University and a Ph.D. in bilingual education and sociolinguistics from New York University.

She speaks French, Spanish, English and Creole. She is proficient in Portuguese and Italian as well as other languages.

“Languages are like a door to a culture,” Joseph said. “And if you can learn the language, you learn about the culture [and] the people and you see how similar we are.”

For her doctoral dissertation, she studied Haitians and their attitudes toward their language in the United States. What she found was quite surprising.

“I found that Haitians were losing their language,” she said. “They were losing French and they were losing Kreyol. They are trying to survive in English, but everyone wants to assume that immigrants are not learning English and that they want to hold on to their language. That’s not true.”

Though successful, Joseph was not immune to adversity.

She talked about one incident that occurred shortly after she graduated from college and had begun looking for an apartment in Brooklyn. She looked in Crown Heights, which at the time was a largely Irish and Caribbean neighborhood, and her intent was to live near her parents.

“Every apartment I applied for was available, or so I was told,” said Joseph. “Since my name was Berotte, people immediately thought I was Italian.”

And every time, the apartment would be unavailable when she appeared at the door.

“That was an eye-opener for me,” Joseph said. “That’s when I realized racism was alive and well.”

It didn’t stop there. Since moving to Massachusetts, she has been forced to balance her need to improve the school with the needs of her colleagues, some of whom are resistant to change.

Most recently, for instance, CBS4 television reporter Joe Bergantino received an anonymous tip to investigate Joseph’s method of hiring staff. Joseph was outraged by Bergantino’s telephone call.

“He said, ‘You don’t do national searches. You’re just hiring your friends.’ I said, ‘No, that’s not true.’ He said ‘Oh, that’s not what we were told,’” said Joseph. “It’s amazing how it’s 2006 and that this underground stuff is still going on. If he does a one-sided story, he’ll hear from me!”

Right now, Joseph says that there is a group very resistant to change, so it’s difficult to make progress. ‘When you are stopping people from getting away with murder, they’re obviously going to be angry with you,” she explained, declining to go into further detail.

For her part, Joseph said she wants to move past the inertia and work on building a community within the campus.

“I believe in what I’m doing and I’m passionate about my job,” said Joseph. “My internal drive, belief in God and the fact that I have an ability to make a difference keeps me going.”

Joseph is a huge fan of community colleges.

“Community colleges are somewhat underrated and little recognized, but they play a critical role in our economy,” Joseph said. “Many times when there is a shortage of workers in a certain sector, such as nursing, community colleges are nimble and have an edge over four-year colleges. Community colleges are able to create programs quickly to train much-needed workers in a short period of time, thus resulting in helping people to find jobs and to fill a demand in the workforce.”

About 95 percent of businesses and organizations employ community college graduates and recommend community college workforce, education and training programs, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

Joseph is also busy off-campus. She remains active in community service and has experience on 26 boards of directors in Massachusetts and New York. She is now on the board of the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs, the National Coalition for Haitian Rights and a Commissioner of the American Association of Community Colleges.

For her community service, Joseph has received 14 higher education and community service awards and fellowships. The Kellogg Foundation selected her as a Fellow in the League for Innovation in the Community College Leadership Award Program.

Other service awards Joseph has received include the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Outstanding Community Service, the Haitian-American Connections Award presented by the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, the Educator of the Year: Gladys Correa Award from the New York State Association for Bilingual Education and Distinguished Educator of the Year Award from the Haitian-American Alliance in New York.