New Director of Greek life Jazmyn Pulley says she's here to stay

Penn's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life has selected Jazmyn Pulley as its new director after a months-long search process involving Greek life student leaders, the Vice Provost’s office, the director of Sexual Violence Prevention, and the Office of Public Safety. 

Pulley’s appointment comes six months after the departure of Eddie Banks-Crosson, who left his position as the former director of OFSL to become the new director of Wharton’s MBA Office of Student Life. She officially assumed the position on July 9. 

Pulley was formerly the associate director of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Columbia University and the assistant director of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Penn State University. As a student at  the University of Delaware, she was a sister of Zeta Phi Beta sorority.

“We definitely wanted someone with experience, and Jazmyn has an abundance of that,” Panhellenic Council President and College senior Kaylee Slusser said. “It was incredibly important for us to know that the new [director] was able to understand that academics really do come first at schools like Columbia and Penn, yet Greek life is very prevalent and important to us.” 

Slusser, along with Intercultural Greek Council President Rio Dennis and Interfraternity Council President Reginal Murphy, watched video applications and sat through in-person interviews with candidates for the role. 

As a South Jersey native whose parents are from the greater Philadelphia area, Pulley is no stranger to the city or to Penn’s campus. 

“I’ve known a lot about Penn for a long time, and I’ve known a number of professionals that have worked here,” Pulley said. “So when I applied for the position, it was an idea of ‘I want to be here as long as possible.’”

According to Dennis, OFSL has experienced frequent turnovers in the staff leadership over the past several years. To that end, he found Pulley's love of Philadelphia and her commitment to leading the OFSL team particularly compelling. 

Banks-Crosson’s time as the director of OFSL lasted around two and a half years. He succeeded Scott Reikofski, who led the OFSL team for 20 years before he retired. 

Staff turnovers have been especially hard for the IGC, which did not have its own advisor during the 2016-2017 school year, Dennis said. Each of the three Greek Councils are assigned an advisor that works more closely with them on issues such as housing assignments, events, and scholarships. The absence of an advisor meant Banks-Crosson had to take on those roles for IGC. 

“[The turnovers] stretched the OFSL staff out really thin, which made it really stressful for them, and there were certain things that the different councils wants that they couldn’t see that year because there was so much going on,” Dennis added. 

Pulley said that she is looking forward to sticking in her position for a long time.

“It’s really hard to do really what a director should in a short amount of time,” Pulley said. “That is my goal — just to stay here as long as possible and really give it my all because I think this community has enough going on, it's large enough and I think the staff is large enough that I could be here years and years and still learn something new and do something new.”