ASU Greek Leadership Village prepares for life after COVID

Leanne Myers’ favorite memories of being a member of Kappa Delta at Ohio State University were of huge gatherings of her sisters and of friends in the school’s fraternities; they’d play piano in the main room of her sorority house and sing, celebrating lavaliering ceremonies and college life.

Now Myers, who is the president of the House Corporation for ASU’s Kappa Delta chapter, is busy cleaning out the sorority’s space at the Greek Leadership Village, setting the chapter up for another year of learning and growth. She moved to Arizona more than 20 years ago and has spent her career in hospitality, recruiting and entrepreneurship while keeping busy nurturing both the chapter and also her 11-year-old daughter and husband.

ASU's Greek Leadership Village

This spring she’s been cleaning out the Kappa Delta rooms earlier than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After communicating with the national Kappa Delta organization in March, the group made the difficult decision to start sending members home early. They were hard conversations, but Myers said as a 12-year adviser to the Tempe group, her main concern is to guide and protect the young women in her chapter.

She said it’s the advisers’ role to make sure the young women are safe, happy and healthy, especially if they’re living far away from their families. So she had to start making tough phone calls. 

“It was not fun, and I felt awful. … But I said it’s my job as an adviser to help you meet your challenges,” she said.

“I’ve learned that if you run away from your issues or your problems then you never learn anything. It’s when you are challenged and you rise and meet those challenges that you learn. My job as an adviser is to be here to help you realize when those challenges are here and manage and get through them as much as I can so that you can learn and grow and be a great leader someday.”

For the chapter members, events and graduation celebrations moved online. Where before they’d gather for leadership conferences or advocating for initiatives about women’s and girls’ confidence, now they’re collaborating over Zoom. It’s not clear what recruitment will look like in the fall across all sororities and fraternities, but virtual models are being worked on right now.

Myers said the women did a remarkable job pivoting after feeling some understandable grief over the loss of the rest of the school year. She said parents were thankful for the advisers’ guidance, and Myers helped the women find storage units and iron out other details.

“They were appreciative and awesome,” she said.

Though the house is currently empty, chapter business continues. Interviews for the house manager roles, a student worker position that helps run the Greek Leadership Village space, are happening on Zoom now. So is a special election for a vacancy on the chapter’s executive board. For now, the chapter is preparing to return as soon as they can and keeping busy with operations from afar.

In these uncertain times, Myers said it’s more important than ever to maintain the kids of connection and engagement you’ll find in Greek life. She encourages incoming ASU students to participate in recruitment because in her experience, it makes a big university “feel small.”

“Especially now that we’re going to be social distancing, maybe it’ll be a way to meet people and find a smaller group,” she said.

“It’s going to be really important socially to be able to hang out with people who are like you. Everyone’s different, nobody’s always the same, but you tend to have some of the same common interests.”