Supervising more than 2,500 combined students in four councils can be quite the chore, but for Jennifer Plagman-Galvin, it’s what keeps her busy in the Office of Greek Affairs.

“No day is the same; everyday is different, and this is a job that really allows me to collaborate with a variety of people,” Plagman-Galvin said.

As the director of greek affairs, Plagman-Galvin spends her entire week working with students, graduate assistants and her own staff on everything involved with the greek community.

“The Collegiate Panhellic Council, Interfraternity Council, National Panhellenic Council and the Muticultural Greek Council are the four governing councils, and there are 35 officers on those councils,” Plagman-Galvin said. “We have a direct responsibility of supporting those officers who support the 50-plus chapters at Iowa State.”

Directing officers in the right directions and providing resources to do so, Plagman-Galvin also works with advisory boards and corporation boards to keep things involved with the greek chapters running smoothly.

“We work on facility issues, advising issues and it’s very reciprocal; myself and the staff are able to provide that support to the community,” she said.

Plagman-Galvin has been apart of the ISU greek community since she was an undergrad. With an undergraduate degree in journalism and mass communication and minor in business, she was able to experience first-hand what the greek system was like.

She attended the University of Charlotte to receive her masters, but she returned to Iowa State in 2004 as the director of greek affairs.

Being one of the few full-time staff members working in the Office of Greek Affairs, Plagman-Galvin has to perform a balancing act while working with many kinds of people to keep things moving.

“The students I work with the most are the governing council officers and chapter presidents. I also spend an entire day every week working with supervising staff that aren’t a part of our office such as the graduate assistants, IFC/CPC advisers and the Panhellenic adviser assistant,” said Plagman-Galvin. “Twenty percent of my week is just supervision.”

With the weekly schedule constantly changing, there are also many seasonal and long-term goals Plagman-Galvin works to accomplish.

Every five years, Greek Affairs creates a new strategic plan of long-term goals to accomplish. The previous strategic plan ended in December 2010. Greek Affairs has been developing the 2011-2015 Strategic Plan.

“In the past five years, we have emphasized on recruitment, retention, prevention, leadership and academic scholarship. We have work groups and task forces to work on this strategic plan. With 30 to 40 teams working on this, that’s a lot of meetings, e-mails and a lot of time,” Plagman-Galvin said.

E-mails, phone calls and many other means of communication are key to making Plagman-Galvin’s job effective to the students, individual chapters, groups, advisers, ISU staff and also parents.

“Sometimes the e-mail flow is exponential. With 700 to 800 new students joining the greek community each year, parents call mostly between May and November asking questions about the process and many other things,” she said.

Apart from goals and concerns for the future of the greek community, Plagman-Galvin reflects on the current and past successes of the greek community.

“This year, we started a new greek leadership class. It’s a two-credit class that’s a new initiative to go along with the strategic plan,” Plagman-Galvin said. “But looking back from 2004, the student capacity grew from being 9 percent to 12 percent of the student population. Many chapters have increased their retention rates also.”

With the student body increasing over the past four years, many chapters have increased their member amount substantially.

As numbers for chapters increasing, initiating new programs has also been a large part of Plagman-Galvin’s career at Iowa State.

“One of the very first successes since I have been director was forming the Multicultural Greek Council.”

Some of the multicultural chapters on campus were not involved with a larger governing council, so Greek Affairs helped them become part of the greek community at Iowa State. Currently there are four multicultural chapters involved at Iowa State.

In her free time, Plagman-Galvin likes to spend time with her three-year-old and seven-year-old. Her husband also works at Iowa State.

“We enjoy ISU activities, and spending time my kids. Ames has a lot to offer in the community. We really just enjoy our family time,” she said.