Q: Tell me about yourself. Where have you been and why choose to work at Augie? 
A: My name is Tia Fuhr, pronounced like the number “four.” I grew up near the Quad Cities in Andalusia, IL. I went away to college and did my undergrad at University of Dubuque. From there, I worked a year in the non-profit industry up there and then decided I wanted to get my masters in student affairs and administration. I got into a program at UW Lacrosse and moved to Wisconsin. It’s kind of a strange situation; I did my masters through Lacrosse but at the time was working at UW River Falls on their campus in their career services office.
I graduated and decided to move back to the Quad Cities, where I was from. My family is still here, so I moved back this past June. I didn’t find any jobs in higher education at that time, so I started working at UnitedWay until December. Then this opened up, so now I’m here!
I really love Augustana. Being back in the Quad Cities, I know this is a great institution, so I was really happy this position opened up.
Q: What’s your job like? What do you have to do? 
A: This is my second week, so I’m still getting used to everything! One of my main roles is going to be coordinating and advising Greek life on campus.
I’ll end up having more responsibilities as I go, but right now, I’m just helping with events and if they have any questions about the coordination of getting things ready on campus. I’ll be asking questions like “is this in place?” or “are things ready for different events we’ll be having?” I’ll be going to all the Greek Council meetings and helping out if they have any questions or are unsure about anything. Then they can come to me for advice or feedback.
Q: Were you in Greek life, yourself?
A: I was, actually, at the University of Dubuque. We were local and actually very similar to Augustana. It’s kind of fun to be back and involved but on a different side of things.
I love it here because – the Recruitment Kick-Off last night? That was so fun! We never did anything like that at the University of Dubuque. Someone asked me what our theme was for Rush and we never did anything like themes or even a big meeting with all the groups. I really like how you guys do it here.
I was part of Gamma Phi Delta, and our character was the toad. The colors were green and yellow. We were really small, so here it seems like a lot of campus is involved in Greek life, so that’s really great.
Q: What are your favorite parts of the job so far?
A: I think it’s meeting with the students and getting to know them. Everyone’s so involved, it seems to be, and excited about different things on campus: being involved in Greek life, and being part of another organization, and then they have double majors and things like that. I think that’s just been really fun to hear about – all the things people are involved in on campus. And everyone’s been very welcoming so far.
Q: There’s been some hope for a Greek director for some time. How long do you plan on staying? 
A: I would love to stay for a long time. [Laughing]
Q: What kind of work do you hope to do with students?
A: This is my first full-time position in higher education, so it’s interesting because before this, I thought I wanted to go more of the career services path. This is a little different than that, but I’m really liking this and I think this will kind of let me see what I really like about working in student life or if I miss working in career services. I’ve also always had an interest in working with first-year experiences and week of welcome stuff. I’ll get to do that in this position, so I’m excited.