Director, Fraternity & Sorority Life

QUALIFICATIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE

Candidates must possess a bachelor’s degree and five years of relevant experience or a combination of a master’s degree in a related field and work experience. Highly preferred qualifications include experience with or demonstrated understanding of fraternity and sorority recruitment, retention, and marketing; advising a large sorority and fraternity community; guiding risk management and organizational judicial procedures; overseeing assessment and strategic planning; and professional staff supervision.

K-State stakeholders identified the following characteristics and strengths as important for the director of fraternity & sorority life:

• Invested and committed to developing young adults in a higher education environment; exhibits educational mindset and philosophy to mentor and coach; can engage students and help create buy-in and trust.
• Able to effectively and efficiently manage crises and proficient in navigating, mediating, and resolving conflict.
• Demonstrates excellent verbal and written communication skills and understanding of organizational and interpersonal dynamics; delivers highly effective presentations with significant experience presenting before large or small groups.
• Exhibits well-developed administrative skills, including detail orientation, initiative, resourcefulness, and teamwork.
• Highly collaborative, responsive, approachable, accessible, excited to partner with myriad stakeholders and serve as FSL subject matter expert.
• “Working” director who will be highly engaged at all levels, ready to step in and support/assist in any situation.
• Experienced in developing strategy and vision, energized by the opportunity to build; is relationship-oriented, exhibits empathy, patience, and compassion, recognizing that the community has been on its own for six years and is going through a significant transition and eager to build partnerships.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE ROLE 

The fraternity and sorority community is established and involved on campus, comprised of energetic, intelligent, and invested students and alumni. There are relatively minimal risk management concerns, and their chapters are consistently recognized as top in the nation; faculty, staff, and alumni tout the outstanding leadership capabilities of the students. Influential alumni remain involved and committed to the K-State fraternity and sorority chapters. K-State is firmly committed to embracing the fraternity and sorority life community and ensuring an outstanding FSL experience. The new director must build solid relationships and trust among the institution, students, and alumni, reestablish a functioning fraternity and sorority life staff, and develop a strategy to address issues arising from the separation.

K-State is invested in the success of FSL. They will rely on the new director as a subject matter expert to guide the process, establish the working relationship between the university and chapters, and rebuild a cohesive FSL culture. Students and alumni were surprised and disappointed when the university severed ties with fraternities and sororities, as there had been a history of positive relationships between the community and the directors of FSL. Students and alumni have held the community together during this challenging time, and are proud of what they have accomplished; nevertheless, the fatigued alumni are excited about reestablishing a relationship with the university and willing to assist the new director wherever needed. The students are somewhat skeptical and concerned with what the new relationship will mean. However, they are cautiously optimistic that a “reunion” will benefit recruitment, and they have been impressed with university leaders guiding the process.

One of the hallmarks of Kansas State University is a culture of highly empowered and strong student leadership of fraternity and sorority chapters and governing councils. K-State students and alumni are proud of the tradition and legacy of many high-performing and nationally recognized chapters. The ability of the students and organizations to flourish to the extent they have is impressive, and the student leaders exhibit remarkable maturity, perspective, and self-awareness. The legacy of leadership is also evident throughout the alumni; collectively, they recognize that one of the key opportunities will be to reestablish a spirit of unification among fraternities and sororities. The absence of sustained university advising has resulted in a lack of collaboration between the chapters and a waning ability to consider the community as a “whole.” Stakeholders realize the resilience resulting from shared programming, consistent advisor/house corporation/house director training and communication, integrated processes, procedures, collection of data, etc.; the new director will therefore need to build a culture around cohesion and collaboration.

To maximize this opportunity, the new director must develop cohesive messaging about the benefits of fraternity/sorority life, living in chapter houses, and associated costs. Additionally, the new director has an opportunity to work with house corporations to create more transparency and consistency with lease agreements to improve parents’ confidence and support for living in chapter houses. When the university severed ties with the fraternities and sororities, these organizations lost the opportunity to promote involvement through official university channels and with prospective and incoming students. Most attribute declining membership numbers to the loss of visibility. K-State is committed to including fraternities and sororities in the university’s student recruitment and new student orientation; chapters are excited by recent investments from K-State to strengthen undergraduate student enrollment and the prospect that increased visibility will bolster membership.

The new director must partner with students, alumni, and campus partners to finalize, implement, and educate the community about policies, procedures, and accountability systems. Alumni value, support, and foster chapter accountability; alumni and students work closely to address poor behavior and celebrate their success. Alumni and students recognize the need for university oversight of specific issues (e.g., Title IX allegations and threats to student safety); the new director must partner closely to integrate their role in current processes and ensure compliance with federal requirements. Additionally, collecting, aggregating, and disseminating chapter data became cumbersome during the separation, and stakeholders shared concerns regarding the lack of information and data validity. The students and alumni are eager for the new director to streamline collecting and sharing chapter data (e.g., contact information and grades).

Diversity and multicultural affairs staff have advised the chapters belonging to the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and typically affiliated with the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). The relationships fluctuated over time, depending on the capacity of staff and advisors. For example, there have been multi-council homecoming groupings, but such efforts have not been sustained. It is vital that the director proactively builds and maintains supportive relationships with the NPHC/MGC chapters and advisors and leverages their expertise to positively impact these communities.

The new director joins the university and the FSL community during a significant transition. Transferring financial responsibility from the student and alumni governing councils to the university is in progress. The director will work in concert with campus partners to develop and implement a sustainable funding model. The student and alumni councils oversee an off-campus bank account with approximately $900,000 and collect roughly $220,000 per year from fraternity and sorority dues. By the end of the academic year, K-State and the councils plan to transfer the funds to an unrestricted foundation account that initially funds professional and administrative staff salaries. The university sponsors two graduate students annually. Ultimately, the university recognizes the benefit of transitioning to an FSL fee collected by the institution in tandem with other student fees (e.g., recreation, etc.). However, due to the timing, the FSL staff will assume responsibility from the alumni councils for collecting the dues from the chapters in the short term.