Two years ago Kyle Pendleton came to Northwestern for advice on launching Columbia University’s own dance marathon. The philanthropic event raised a first-year record $103,000 and legitimated the school’s Greek system.

Now Pendleton has returned to NU as the new associate director of undergraduate residential life for Greek Affairs, and he said he’s enthusiastic about the school’s thriving Greek community that can only get better.

“It is different coming from a school like Columbia, where I had very little support from the faculty and administration, to a school where I have nothing but support,” Pendleton said. “We are so committed to the advancement of the fraternity and sorority students. I feel like the Greek community here matters and I won’t have to be constantly defending it.”

Pendleton, 32, spent four years at Columbia trying to bolster support from administrators who questioned students’ motives for joining fraternities and sororities. When the Greek community sponsored the first dance marathon at the school, which benefited the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, he said he helped change attitudes in the administration.

The Ohio State alumnus said he’s glad to be back at a large university with more school spirit and participation in the Greek system, something he said Columbia’s 7,000 undergraduates lacked.

After working for his national fraternity, Delta Sigma Phi, Pendleton completed his graduate work at the University of South Carolina. He also was assistant director of Greek Affairs at San Diego State University.

Now back in the Big Ten, Pendleton said he’s hoping to commit long-term to NU. Steve Dealph, associate director of Greek Affairs for nearly eight years, left last fall to work with the North American Interfraternity Conference.

Pendleton replaces acting assistant director Sean Thomas who temporarily held the position last year after Dealph’s departure. Thomas is now working at Mercer University in Georgia.

Joining Pendleton in Greek Affairs is Mark Manderino, the new area coordinator, who graduated from the University of Illinois and worked at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo before coming to NU. He replaces Elizabeth Kos, who now works with the Alumni Development Office.

Interfraternity Council President James Troupis said he was impressed by Pendleton’s enthusiasm for the position when he interviewed him last spring.

“He’s been extremely encouraging,” Troupis said. “Now he can focus on improving our Greek community as opposed to the sole focus of enlarging the Greek community, which he did at Columbia.”

Students who believe NU lacks school spirit have not been to Columbia, Pendleton joked. If anything, he wants to continue what he started at Columbia by showing the relevance of the Greek system to the non-Greek community.

One of his goals is to defeat negative stereotypes that sometimes circulate by showing Greek life is “a positive complement to being a student at Northwestern.”

He also said he was encouraged at Columbia by the emergence of cultural Greek organizations and the resurgence of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, something he looks forward to nurturing at NU.