Therese Barbuto, senior administrator II, a key assistant in the Yale College Dean's Office for over 35 years, died on April 19 after a long illness. She was 69.
Teri, as she was known in the Yale community, had worked for the university since 1978, first in Human Resources and then for the Bass Writing Program in Yale College. In 1990, however, she found her calling when she joined the Yale College Dean's Office (YCDO) as the assistant to Betty Trachtenberg, the long serving dean of students - and became her right hand. She remained that through the next three deans. Melanie Boyd, the current dean of students, called her "the person who welcomed me into the office in 2009" and who remained "my mentor and guide."
There are those administrative assistants across the Yale campus on whom every chair, every dean, every administrative head counts and without whom the Yale ship would not sail on smoothly. They are too often left out of the university's history, but they are a prominent part of it. Teri Barbuto was such a person. Without her, much would have gone awry in Yale College during her tenure - and even after she retired, when she retained a role as consultant, historical font of knowledge, and "fill in," when needed, providing her experience, wisdom, and institutional care to cover parental leaves, staff vacancies, and unexpected crunch periods.
What did Teri Barbuto do? She had a hand in all the work of the college's dean of students, coordinating the cultural center deans and all the events around first-year and student affairs along with other YCDO stalwart administrative assistants over the years - among them, Silvia DeCastro and Betty Jane Schiller.
But her special expertise may have been pre-orientation for Yale College's first-year students, a maddeningly complex affair: arranging the students' arrival, dealing with the residential colleges and deans and heads, initiating the college's "FroCos" (first year counselors), booking rooms, arranging meetings, producing agendas, and most especially handling endless myriad questions and problems. Said Silvia DeCastro, who sat next to her in the office for 30 years, "She was immensely proud of leading that program and did a superb job welcoming first-year students to Yale College every year, with skill, care, and dedication."
"She ran the First-Year Orientation like a boss," said Clare Schlegel, the equally long serving administrative assistant for academic affairs. "She was always on top of it. Always thinking ahead and pivoting on a dime when need be. She knew only solutions - not problems. Problems were what you worked through. Always."
She had special qualities that made her such a well-regarded colleague and led her to make contributions beyond her dean's office role. Perhaps these qualities emerged from her family background. She was one of 15 children in the Fargeorge family in New Haven's Fair Haven neighborhood (she had nine sisters and five brothers), and it is hard to imagine that growing up with 14 siblings did not help develop certain qualities she exemplified.
"What stands out in my memory," wrote John Meeske, a retired longtime associate dean, "is that Teri was totally unflappable. In all the years I worked with her I never saw her lose her cool or her temper or even become impatient - not with students, not with faculty, not with colleagues - even though she had ample reason to do so."
Melanie Boyd concurred: "She was reliably kind, calm, and empathetic to everyone."
Said Silvia DeCastro: "She taught me endurance, persistence, generosity of spirit, and how to toughen up during any crisis."
"She was the epitome of a team player," wrote Clare Schlegel. "She looked out for everyone. She was a rock and the salt of the earth and the kind of person you would always want to be more like. Kind, thoughtful, patient beyond compare, a master logistician and co-creator in her work for Yale."
Teri Barbuto's life at Yale records, in the main, a smaller world that has changed. Nevertheless, colleagues recalled how lucky they were to have her, and still now to have others like her: assistants, operations managers, business managers, and facilities staff, the able, competent, cheerful, supportive, loyal, knowing, caring persons on whom the university depends, those who are helpmeets, advocates, and confidants, and who make everyone's work lives more productive, satisfying, and happier.
"In losing Teri, we have lost the Oracle of SSS," opined Dean Boyd, referring to the building Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona in which the Yale College Dean's Office is partially housed. "Not that she was ever cryptic or forbidding - simply all-knowing."
Her colleagues grieve the passing of a village elder but celebrate her wonderful life.
She is survived by her husband of 42 years Ralph Barbuto. Visiting hours will be on Friday, April 24, from 9:30 to 11:30 AM at The Havens Family North Haven Funeral Home, 36 Washington Ave., in North Haven. A Mass of Chrisian Burial will be celebrated in St. Elizabeth of the Trinity Parish at St. Therese Church, 555 Middletown Ave., North Haven. Interment will follow in All Saints Cemetery.
