The office hidden on the side of the housing building is now home to Syreeta Greene. After being a consultant for higher education at a firm and 13 years at the University of Southern California, she came for the opportunity and to take the position of director in the brand new office of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management.

“I felt that given my background and my experience, it was a great opportunity to serve in this role,” Greene said.

The position of multicultural coordinator focused on campus wide events and programming, while the new position focuses more on looking at data, educating the campus on various issues as it relates to topics around race, ethnicity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as creating support services for historically marginalized, underrepresented students.

“The overall goal is to get the foundation of the office together, establishing what it is that we do, how we go about it, and making connections,”Greene said. “Because it is a brand new office, maybe students don’t know that this office exists. It’s really about relationships across campus with the students, with the staff and really creating an identity within the campus community.”

There are two primary goals of the office, which include the data surrounding student’s success, achievement and campus climate, and how students feel about being on campus.

“We have started some initial data collections and data reviews but initially we will be looking at a lot of different data sets,” Greene said. “This is to better understand the student experience from a number of different variables and then be able to determine where we may have some gaps and what it is that we need to do to close those gaps.”

Her office is not just a place of data and research, as it’s also a place for students to walk in and feel welcomed.

“This place is a very friendly community, when I first came in here the vibe was just real open, nice and friendly,” Kaylen Melton, exercise physiology freshman, said. “It really is like a family in here. We all help each other out when it’s needed, give each other advice, and when we see each other outside of the office, we are all friendly.”

The office is funded by the university and student fees of $9,000. This makes Greene’s yearly salary $105,040.

“I have the data piece, equity, and then I have the inclusion piece which is really training in education,” Greene said. “Then the multicultural affairs piece, which is supports services for underrepresented students.”

Students who feel underrepresented on campus now have a space they can go to be heard.

“This is what I love to do, I’ve been in higher education for going on 17 years now,” Greene said. “I enjoy working with students, I enjoy making a difference, and I enjoy being able to plant seeds.”

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