Cynthia Rose, Northwestern’s new director of fraternity and sorority life, said she thinks being a part of Greek life can be the most influential piece of a person’s life.

“It can reclassify your values, it can introduce you to new and different beliefs, different levels of diversity and different opinions,” she said. “It can honestly make a person a better person.”

Rose, who started at the University last week, said she is on a “big listening tour” as she gets to know the NU community.

“I’m going around, trying to learn as much as possible,” she said.

For the next few weeks she will meet with students in the Greek community to hear what they want to accomplish, she said.

Rose became interested in fraternity and sorority life when she was an undergraduate at Drexel University. At Drexel, she was president of her sorority, Delta Zeta, interned in the fraternity and sorority office and won national awards for her work in the Greek community.

“I immediately realized that this had the potential,” she said, “not just me realizing that this was a good thing for a transfer student to make friends, but for me to be an amazing leader, to make an impact on something.”

After graduating from college, she worked at the University of Missouri in residence life, which prompted her to go to graduate school at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her masters in student affairs. Following graduate school, Rose oversaw Greek life at many colleges, most recently as the associate director of the Center for Student Involvement at Northeastern University.

“I really just bought into completely the fraternity and sorority community,” she said. “It’s been a constant theme in my career.”

She decided to apply for position at NU because she didn’t get to experience much of the Greek life aspect of the job at Northeastern, she said.

“I wanted to give back,” Rose said. “I wanted to allow students to have the unbelievable experience that I had.”

Rose said she focuses on building relationships when she works with students. She still speaks on the phone every week with the Panhellenic Association president at Rollins College, where she worked from 2010 to 2012. She said when making decisions about the communities she oversees, she keeps “their morals and visions in mind.”

Weinberg senior Kyle Sieber, president of the Interfraternity Council, said he has not yet had the chance to meet with Rose at length.

“I am looking forward to getting to know her and to working with her to continue to strengthen the Greek and IFC communities,” Sieber said in an email to The Daily.

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