1. Tell us a little about yourself and what you do at St. Lawrence
I’m an associate director in the office of Student Activities and Leadership. My position involves working in many different areas of student engagement: Greek life, assisting with new student orientation, coordinating campus events such as Family Weekend and the annual Leaders Among Laurentians student leadership conference, advising the senior class and helping them plan senior week, and lots more!
2. What are the pros and cons of joining greek life on campus?
I think this depends on the individual. I know some women who’ve told me that joining a sorority is the best thing they’ve ever done and truly enhanced their time at SLU, while others try Greek recruitment and ultimately feel that joining a theme house or other organization is a better fit for what they’re personally looking to get out of their college experience. Of course, there are also plenty of students who do both and have their hands in a bit of everything!
3. what’s your favorite part of your job?
I really enjoy bid day in the fall, specifically making the phone calls to offer bids to PNMs. It’s a great feeling to hear the excitement on the other end of the line when someone gets into the sorority they were hoping for.
4. What do you like most about each sorority on campus?
I love that our four sororities here each support really important, meaningful philanthropy organizations. Chi O has Make-a-Wish Foundation and Delta has St. Jude Children’s Hospital. As a mom, I can really appreciate the work that both of these organizations do for children with serious illnesses. KDS supports Vera Bradley Foundation for breast cancer research. I think we all know someone who’s been affected by breast cancer and can appreciate how important it is to make strides toward finding a cure. Kappa’s philanthropy is Reading is Fundamental, and literacy and a love of reading are things that I’m personally really passionate about. I’ve read to my daughter every day since probably my 6th month of pregnancy with her and was a huge bookworm when I was a kid.
5. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
I get to know some of the sorority women really well, particularly those with leadership positions in the individual sororities and in Panhellenic Council. As such I get asked to write a lot of recommendations for things like study abroad or applications to graduate or medical school. It’s extremely rewarding to see students succeed both here at SLU and beyond. I really enjoy hearing that a student got into the study abroad program she wanted or was accepted to her top-choice medical school. Those kinds of things always make my day!
6. what’s the most challenging part of you job
We have a small Greek system here at St. Lawrence, which I personally like, but a lot of the national policies are designed for much bigger Greek systems and at times this poses challenges when policies don’t necessarily fit with the unique student culture here at St. Lawrence. Sometimes this requires some brainstorming and navigating with the sorority women to figure out how to best adapt these policies to SLU, but I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a problem that we couldn’t work to solve.
7. is there anything else you’d like to talk about regarding greek life, specifically sororities on campus?
I’ve met a lot of great individuals through Greek life at SLU who are now out in the world doing some pretty awesome things. I’m both happy and grateful to have been a part of their St. Lawrence experience and I’m excited to see what the newest groups of sorority women will accomplish, both here at SLU and beyond!