Profile: Carmen Cruz

Carmen Cruz has spent the past 25 years ensuring that the Emerson campus is clean and safe. She is one of three employees who works the second shift as a custodian in the Facilities Management Department.

She arrives around lunchtime every day Monday through Friday, and sometimes works overtime on Saturday and Sunday. She is responsible for maintaining a clean environment on the floors of buildings that have the most traffic. She cleans bathrooms, classrooms, floors, and empties trash on five floors of the Ansin Building, four floors of 216 Tremont, one floor of the Little Building, five floors of the Walker Building, five floors of the Tufte PPC, and two floors of Piano Row.

Cruz also helps keep the Cutler Majestic, Paramount, Semel, and Green theaters tidy when events are scheduled. She cleans in the seating areas, bathrooms, and lobbies. It’s especially hectic when she has to clean a theater between the matinee and evening performances on the weekends.

She is just as busy in the summertime, even though most students and faculty are gone…because she gets the rooms in all four residence halls ready for students arriving in the fall! This entails cleaning the rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, and removing any trash left behind.

Cruz enjoys her work because it keeps her busy and Emerson has become “a second home” to her. She said, “I love Emerson. I respect the students and they respect me. And the staff help each other.” She does enjoy her work even more since the campus moved to newer buildings in the Theatre District. “I don’t miss cleaning those old buildings on Beacon Street,” she said jokingly.

Before arriving at Emerson, Cruz worked as a personal care assistant in Milton, Massachusetts. She moved to the Boston area from El Salvador almost 30 years ago. During her free time, she likes to read and spend time with her three children and her first grandchild, who is nine months old. She lives in Revere, Massachusetts.

Nancy Howell (Communications)