Greek Life Assistant Directors

Tell me a little bit about what the start of a new school year means for your roles:

Logan: A lot of the beginning of the year for us, for Kara and myself, is putting plans to actions as far as recruitment is concerned. I know Kara worked with around 2100 potential new members to her community and then I worked with around 1000 new members for my community. We have that and then Montrez really focuses on First Friday events and then Meet the Greeks for NPHC and MGC which are informational sessions that students that are interested in those two councils can go towards and kicking off the year saying we’re here on campus, come see us, come meet us. It is a lot of making sure our students are being very outwardly focused so that people know that they are here on this campus.

Kara: We had, for Panhellenic and IFC, record breaking numbers of potential new members, so that was really exciting. For Panhellenic, we welcomed more new members than we even started the recruitment process with last year, which was really exciting, so somewhere around 1900 new members this year. We have week-long training sessions with the executive board, we have week-long trainings for our recruitment counselors and a lot of preparation work. A big piece for Logan and I is new member education and that is an important and critical time for our communities and requires us as advisors to be hands on with what they are doing. It is no secret that new member education can be a risky time for fraternity and sorority communities, and so it’s really, really important that we are aware of what all of our chapters are doing in their new member education process.

Montrez: In the beginning of the Fall semester, I serve more as a support role for our office. If Kara or Logan need help with anything, I’m more than happy to help. My busy time is coming up now. The groups I advise have a different new membership time period than IFC and Panhellenic. NPHC and MGC start their new member or intake processes around late September and end right before Thanksgiving. Outside of trying to be as good of a teammate as I can, I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the semester trying to get my students back into the swing of things. At the beginning of summer, a lot of students disconnect, so sometimes it takes a little time to get them back into “school-mode”. My first couple of weeks in the fall semester consists of meeting with students to ensure they are starting to think about what their new member plans are going to be. Most of them have to submit paperwork to Nationals to get approval.

Were you involved in Greek Life when you went to college and how did that influence your career path?

Logan: I joined my organization as a Sophomore and I held positions consistently throughout, I was treasurer and vice president in my organization and when I graduated, I actually worked at my Fraternity headquarters for three years doing conduct and accountability investigations. I didn’t want people to have the experience that I had. I had a really negative experience and I had a very positive experience in some ways, obviously, but my experience was probably very different from most peoples as far as more accountability practices and hazing and things like that, so I use that as a catalyst to want to try to provide some change in the places I go. I don’t think that put me in the spot that I am in, so to speak, here at UGA, but I think that was the impetus for me wanting to continue into higher ed in some capacity and it just ended up working out where I was lucky enough to go back to school and do those types of things.

Montrez: I joined as a Junior, so it took me some time to figure out what I wanted to pursue. While I didn’t hold any executive board positions, I was very involved in my chapter and held leadership positions in other campus organizations. During my time in graduate school, our Director of Greek Life left and I was given an opportunity to serve as the Interim Director while a national search was taking place. What started off as a 4-month commitment, ended up being a year.  It ended up being a great experience for me. I had the opportunity to work with councils outside of the one my organization is a part of. The time in that position made me realize working with fraternities and sororities could be in my future career path.

Kara: I joined Pi Beta Phi as a freshman through the formal recruitment process while at Iowa State. After serving in several leadership roles, such as chapter president and Panhellenic president, I realized that I could do something similar as a career. I ended up in grad school with an assistantship in fraternity and sorority life, which eventually led me to UGA.

Who do you look up to/admire?

Kara: I really admire Brené Brown and her wisdom and knowledge. Love her podcast!

Montrez: Mine is Victor Wilson. He’s been a role model and mentor to me for a very long time. He was actually the VP at my undergrad institution, so I’ve known him since my sophomore year in college. He was the first administrator I met that made me think I could make a career out of Student Affairs. He has always very personable and you can tell he genuinely cares about others. And if you ever have a conversation with him, he is probably one of the funniest people you will ever meet.

Logan: Professionally, the Chancellor of my undergrad university, Dr. David Belcher. He passed away in 2018, but he took a lot of time to go out of his way to make people feel like they belong. My undergrad campus was, I think in the past 4 years 90% of the students admitted are first generation college students and that’s been fairly consistent over the past 30 years of that school. He would just walk around campus in the morning in a jog suit and know your name, which was weird, but really cool. And then I remember we invited him to our fraternity’s 25^th anniversary and I got to talk to him there with his wife and was like “I just graduated, I don’t know how to be involved on campus” and he said  ‘email me and we’ll have a meeting’ and I show up and the President of the University has a meeting with a 23 year old, just graduated kid that was like “how do I get involved?” when he could have easily been like ‘talk to an alumni association or whatever’. But I have always used that as a measuring post for like, no matter what I do one day, I need to remember where I came from cause at one point in my life I didn’t know a single person that had gone to college and now almost everyone I know has gone to college.

What is the coolest thing you have ever done?

Logan: Marrying my wife was really cool.

Montrez: Mine is two things: the first is meeting Thomas Davis. He played football here and went on to play for my favorite NFL team, the Carolina Panthers. The second coolest thing I’ve done is meeting Ernie Johnson, randomly, a couple months ago. He’s a sportscaster and alum of UGA. He’s someone I have watched since I was a kid. I’m a huge sports fan, so meeting him was definitely one of those really cool moments. It was one of the only times in my life I’ve been star struck.

Kara: Over the past two summers, I have taken a week-long trip with my best friend to visit a national park. Last year, we went to Olympic National Park and this year we visited Glacier National Park. They were some of my most favorite trips!

The Greek Life office clearly has a unique connection; when asked what they like about their jobs, they each said the people they work with and the friendly and welcoming environment that have. The interview was completed between jokes and laughter. And they want staff to know that they are approachable and have a willingness to work with other departments across campus, it is just as simple as reaching out, as Montrez says, “We can find a connection point somewhere to create those partnerships, programs and events.”

If you would like to reach out to Greek Life to collaborate with them or learn more about them, you can reach them at greeklife@uga.edu or you can email them directly.