To the right of Mary Beth Seiler’s desk, framed photo collages cover the wall, illustrating her career in Greek life during the past 36 years.
As the longest-serving sorority and fraternity adviser in the nation, many stories hang in those frames. And a new addition to her walls is one that Seiler is humbly honored by — an award that Delta Gamma Fraternity recently created in her name.
Seiler, who serves as director of Greek life at the University of Michigan, began her Greek career at Kent State, where she joined Delta Gamma as a legacy, following in the footsteps of her mother.
After graduation, she remained involved in the organization by volunteering with local and alumnae chapters. In 1978, Seiler and her family moved to Ann Arbor from Chicago. Amid the search for a job to suit her elementary-education background and lifestyle raising two young children, a local colleague of one of Seiler’s friends from the Chicago alumnae chapter reached out to ask if she would like to get involved. Seiler took on a position as a volunteer adviser for the U-M Delta Gamma chapter.
In 1979, Seiler was hired by a group of sorority alumnae to serve as the adviser to the Panhellenic sororities. The community was fast-growing, and the position continued to expand, becoming an official university position in 1995.
Seiler became the director of Greek life in 2000, responsible for overseeing all four councils (Panhellenic Association, Interfraternity Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council and Multicultural Greek Council), but still primarily serving Panhellenic sororities.
Today, the position still evolves. While Seiler will continue her position as director, she will oversee each of the four councils evenly and engage advisers to work with each council directly.
“I’m excited because it opens up some opportunities for me to start some new initiatives that will benefit all four councils,” Seiler says.
She hopes to get more alumni involved, raise money for Greek life programs, and work on better establishing chapters’ relationships with their national headquarters.
The award named after her by Delta Gamma recognizes the importance of those partnerships between national headquarters and campus Greek advisers. Though she is honored by it, she is primarily excited about what it represents.
Every year, the award will recognize a campus professional who champions and challenges collegiate chapters in their values and fulfilling the mission of their college or university community. Seiler even gets to help select the recipient.
“We all work together for the same students,” Seiler says of headquarters and campus advisers. “I was just proud that they chose to recognize that as being so important.”
Today, the number of students in Greek life at U-M is at an all time high. Although she admits that Greek life may not be for every student, Seiler speaks passionately of the benefits it offers, including the opportunity to be involved in something outside of the classroom. Students who participate in Greek life have positive graduation rates and are strongly involved in their communities.
The weekly Spotlight features faculty and staff members at the university. To nominate a candidate, email the Record staff at urecord@umich.edu.
“Greek life offers a lot of opportunities — leadership, service, friendship and the opportunity for something life-long,” she says.
In her free time, Seiler enjoys staying active, whether it is with her sorority sisters, singing in a chorus, involvement in community theater, or by keeping up with her five grandchildren.
Although Seiler admits that a lot of her friends have retired now, she laughs and says that she doesn’t see herself doing so anytime soon.
“I feel like I have a lot of work to do, a lot of things that I want to accomplish,” she says, smiling. “I’ve always said that I have never been bored with this job.”
Sonia Daily
Mary Beth was the Panhellenic Advisor when I attended Michigan in the 1980s. In my role of Panhellenic president she was my mentor and was a great role model. She knew how to mentor – encouraging me, coaching me, yet at the same time stepping back and letting me handle the job – even letting me fall flat on my face. She repeated that each year with a new group of student leaders and is still making a difference with young adults today. I was so happy to learn that she was still there when my daughter joined a sorority a few years ago. She’s a real treasure at Michigan!