Ambre Reed

Community Director, Village C East and Copley Hall
Age: 27
Hometown: Atlanta, Ga.
Time at Georgetown: 2 years

When did you know that you wanted to work in this role of university administration?
I think I was really, really active in undergrad. I was in SGA, I was in NAACP. I was in all these student organizations. I was always helping out with stuff. That comes normal to me so when I went to grad school. I was also an RA in undergrad and then when I went to grad school there was an opportunity for a grad assistantship to be a Resident Assistant. So like a hall director as a grad student. I applied for that and was like this is something I would love to do, love to try. Even though it wasn’t necessarily. I didn’t get my masters in higher ed like a million people that kind of do this job now. I really enjoyed it and I did that for two years and worked with RAs and just enjoyed working with students and just kind of helping students, helping people in their transitions, finding themselves and getting jobs.

As the community director you serve a dual role in which you want to foster a sense of community in the residence hall but also you have to discipline. So how do you juggle these two seemingly opposing roles?
I would say it’s always about community building in a way. I mean, in terms of conduct, whenever I have conversations with students that you know have had a issue or incident, it’s always still about who they are and helping them to learn about who they are through this situation that they’re in and it’s always a chance for me to meet people so whenever I’ve met students that have gone through the conduct system I always feel like it’s an opportunity for me to get to know who they are and me to help them through whatever the process is they’re going through. So I don’t think of it as a hard, “I have to be the bad guy right now.” I think of it as, you know, if you were responsible for this then that’s a mistake and how are you gonna learn from it and you know how you’re gonna take that into what you have next, into your life, into classes, into your decisions in the future. So it’s always a learning experience for me.

How do you try to develop the sense of community in VCE and Copley?
I think trying to be as visible as possible which is a little difficult sometimes but trying to work with the RAs I think and having the trickle-down effect of building community with them and helping them to come up with programs and helping them to think through issues with students and helping them to work with maybe a student who might need outreach more or might want to get involved more. And giving them a lot of resources and supporting them has been the best way I think I’ve been able to bring that community forward. And also having fun programs at the end of the semester and kind of being a visible person and outside of the person who just sends emails. That’s usually how people see me an they’re like, “Oh, you’re the person who sends all the emails.” And I’m like, “Yup, that’s me.” But, finally allowing them to put a face to the name when they see all these things from you.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts of this job?
I think my favorite part is just working with the RAs and the students. Least favorite part is… I don’t know… When I see students struggle with things that they can’t control at the time. Like administration-wise or things that I might think are unfair, things that they should fight for. Seeing them be frustrated by the bureaucracy or frustrated by certain systems in place. But the good thing is that I can help them talk through it and hopefully help them find some solutions so that they can advocate for themselves because I can only advocate so much in this role as a middle manager in a way.

What is it like to live on a college campus and in a dorm building beyond your college years?
It’s kind of weird. I think it’s… I don’t know… There’s never a dull moment. There’s always something going on. You know, there might be a fire alarm at 9 a.m. after a snow day or people might be loud outside or whatever but it’s still my home and it’s still where I live and as much as it’s home for everyone else, it’s still home for me. I have friends come over and things like that and they’re always like, “This is really cool” You get to be young forever almost. It does keep me young in a sense. So I enjoy it. It’s life for me.

How do you perceive Georgetown students?
I think Georgetown students are very complex. I think there’s so many layers and it’s really cool to see all the different layers to play out. Very intelligent. Very involved. Very motivated. Very inspirational in a way. They’ve inspired me so many times. Just like, “Wow, I never would’ve thought of that.” Thinking of so many solutions based things and then still knowing all these layers and still knowing that they have their own things that they have to work through. And we’re all kind of the same. We all have our ups and downs. We all have our struggles. So just that complexity is just really cool. 

Outside work, what interests you? What kind of things do you do for fun?
I like to hang out with people. I love trying new things. So I’m really excited for the summer. I can go see cherry blossoms. I could go walk around the Mall. I can visit museums or I could just go find a beach someplace. Or go visit New York. It’s so many options all the time that I just like to explore those things.

What is your role during the summer?
Last summer I worked with the high school student program over the summer so I did programming with them and the RAs, summer RAs and summer interns. So we did the large-scale programs on Saturdays which are really cool with inflatables and all these different events every week. So that was really fun to see people and get to play with the things myself. This summer I’ll be working on summer projects. Because our offices just merged last year, we’re going to be working to streamline things and create better systems and be more efficient. So I’ll probably be working on some projects like that.

Anything you’d like to add?
Georgetown is just a really cool place. I think it’s different from lot of schools I’ve been at and a lot of schools that I see. I enjoy learning more about it everyday because it’s always kind of growing and moving. Especially since it’s rooted in tradition, it’s still always changing, which I think is really cool because I think that some people don’t see that, they don’t stop to see all the changes that are happening. They just see only this side of tradition and this stagnant culture that they may see, but I see the potential, I see the movement. And I see so many things that students offer, people offer that work here. 

Interview by Ian Tice