When Saulter applied for a job at Emory in 1980, the Human Resources staff member she talked with felt that Saulter's international background made her the ideal candidate for a job in Residential Services' Graduate Student Housing Office then referred to as the graduate assignment person. (The title has since been changed to facilities coordinator.) Saulter accepted the position, a significant portion of which includes helping international graduate students get their bearings in a strange place.
"Having been a military wife for 20 years," Saulter said, "I knew what it felt like to arrive in a strange place. When I came to Emory, I always tried to remember that feeling and apply it to the person sitting on the opposite side of my desk."
Part of the unique experience of establishing oneself in a foreign country, Saulter said, is knowing that you are ordinarily a strong, competent person, but being forced to rely on someone else to familiarize you with your new surroundings. While in Germany, Saulter and her family lived in a small village about 45 kilometers from the Army post where her husband worked. "No Americans had lived out there before," Saulter recalled. "All the Germans knew us before we even got there, because that's the way things work in those small villages. I remember standing in the store with the money in my hand, depending on the Germans to count the money and not charge me too much for a loaf of bread. They were very nice and didn't cheat me, but I was kind of at their mercy."
Once she became acclimated to her German surroundings, Saulter took a job in housing referral for enlisted Army personnel, whose rank did not permit them to live on military bases. She met with German landlords and drew up rental contracts for the enlisted personnel and their families.
When Saulter came to Emory, she brought with her both the experience of having been a newcomer in a foreign country and of having helped other newcomers set up their households.
"I knew how those new students felt who had left home, given up a house or an apartment or left their families, and all of a sudden were in Atlanta for the first time, and getting housing was their first step," Saulter recalled. "Once you find housing, you can go on to other things, but the most important step is to get settled, to have somewhere to lay your head. I remember when we first started getting large numbers of international students, and sometimes they would arrive a day or two before we expected them. I would look up and there was a family sitting in front of my desk, and they needed housing and furniture immediately. So I would call and try to find that family some excess furniture, even if it was for just one night. That was really enjoyable."
Although Saulter transferred several months ago to a new position in Residential Services overseeing furniture control and tracking, she has deepened her commitment to furthering international understanding in a way that her former job probably would not have permitted. On Nov. 11, Saulter and several other Emory women staff members attended a conference titled "Building Bridges of Peace" sponsored by the Women's Federation for World Peace. Held at the Waverly Hotel in Cobb County, the event was part of a series of International Women's Friendship Conferences. That series originated from the federation's 1994 Korean-Japanese Sisterhood Project, in which 179,000 pairs of "sisters" from the two countries were matched in an effort to resolve the history of hostility between the two countries.
In the Friendship Conferences taking place in the United States, American and Japanese sisters are being matched in an effort to further international friendship and understanding. At the event Saulter attended, she was one of 150 American women matched with 150 Japanese women.
"Our families adopted each other," Saulter said of the ceremony. "We signed a certificate and became sisters." Saulter said she was surprised that the concerns of the Japanese women she spoke with so closely mirrored the primary concerns of many American women, including teen pregnancy, the divorce rate and domestic violence. "The interesting and wonderful part of all this is that we all connected so well," she recalled. "We all want the same things for our children: to grow up and be good, productive people. That doesn't change from country to country."
In addition to searching for Christmas presents for her three grandchildren and two new Japanese "grandchildren," as Saulter refers to the children of her newfound sister, she also is continuing her work with the Mecca chapter of the Coalition of 100 Black Women, which she founded several years ago. One of the chapter's primary activities is a mentoring program for more than 50 girls at Drew Elementary School near downtown Atlanta. The chapter also does a great deal of work with the Oakhurst Community Center in Decatur, which provides prenatal care and counseling for pregnant teens.
Working with the Drew Elementary students, adopting a family from Japan and being a full-time grandmother is keeping Saulter much busier at a time in her life when she expected to be taking things a little easier. Resting on her laurels, however, is not part of the plan for this citizen of the world.
--Dan Treadaway