Fraternity and sorority professionals know that the most meaningful moments in our work rarely happen behind a desk. They happen during meetings with students, late-night phone calls, leadership retreats, and conversations that help students better understand who they are, what they value, and who they want to become.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more integrated into higher education, many conversations have focused on efficiency and automation. But perhaps a more important question remains: how can these tools help us become more present, intentional, and effective in our relationships with student leaders?
For me, the answer appeared in one of the most routine parts of my job: meetings with students.
Like many fraternity and sorority professionals, I spend a significant portion of my week connecting with student leaders. These conversations are some of the most meaningful moments in my work. They are where I learn about chapter culture, celebrate wins, identify challenges, and support students as they navigate leadership, relationships, and everything in between.
After meeting with dozens of chapter presidents, recruitment chairs, risk managers, and council officers, it can be difficult to remember every conversation with the level of detail students deserve. I found myself spending significant time reviewing notes, trying to remember where a chapter left off, what commitments had been made, and which issues needed follow-up.
The reality is that fraternity and sorority professionals are often juggling competing priorities at a pace that can feel impossible to sustain. It is difficult to remember every detail from every meeting when you are running on too little sleep, realizing you worked through lunch again, and responding to the very real possibility that another chapter may quite literally be on fire.
Student leaders still deserve an advisor who remembers the details that matter to them. Whether it is following up on a difficult conversation with their executive board, asking about a goal they set for themselves, or checking in on the engineering class they mentioned was becoming overwhelming, students want to know they were heard.
This challenge became even more apparent when our office transitioned from four professional staff members to two. Almost overnight, my advising responsibilities expanded significantly, and I found myself coaching more than half of our 50+ chapter community. I quickly realized that the systems and strategies I had relied on before were no longer sustainable.
The challenge was not a lack of commitment or care. If anything, I wanted to be even more present for students during a period of transition and uncertainty. But with dozens of chapter leaders, hundreds of conversations, and competing priorities, I needed a better way to track information and maintain continuity across relationships. This is where AI became surprisingly helpful.
After meeting with students, I maintain my own notes and use AI to help organize them into concise summaries. Rather than sorting through pages of notes, I can quickly identify recurring themes, leadership development opportunities, concerns that need monitoring, and follow-up items for future meetings.
The result is not simply better record-keeping: it is better advising. These summaries help me understand not only what individual students and organizations are experiencing, but also what is emerging across the community as a whole. When several chapter presidents raise similar concerns around recruitment, officer accountability, member engagement, communication challenges, or risk management, those patterns become easier to identify. Instead of viewing each conversation in isolation, I can step back and see broader trends shaping the student experience.
Those insights inform my work far beyond individual meetings. They help shape educational programming, guide council initiatives, identify opportunities for proactive support, and strengthen conversations with campus partners.
AI also helps me prepare for future meetings with greater intentionality. Before meeting with a student leader, I review previous summaries and use AI to generate an agenda grounded in their organization’s goals, current challenges, and previously identified action items. Rather than relying on a standard template or beginning with broad questions like, “What’s been going on?” I can facilitate conversations that build on previous discussions and encourage deeper reflection.
Instead of spending valuable meeting time trying to remember details, I can ask questions such as:
- Last month, you shared that your engineering class was really tough. How is it going now?
- You mentioned wanting to increase member engagement. What changes have you noticed since introducing new programming strategies?
- Recruitment numbers were a challenge last semester. What trends are you seeing this cycle?
Those questions communicate something important to students: I remembered.
The irony of using artificial intelligence to strengthen human relationships is not lost on me. Yet I have found that AI is most impactful when it supports the deeply relational aspects of our work rather than attempting to replace them. Students want to feel known. They want to know that someone remembers what they shared in a meeting three weeks ago, follows up on a difficult conversation with their executive board, or asks about the initiative they were excited to launch. They want to feel seen not only as leaders, but as people. Ultimately, they want to know their experiences matter.
AI did not solve our staffing challenges, and it certainly did not replace the relationships I had built with students. What it did provide was a way to preserve those relationships despite increased demands by helping me spend less time searching for information and more time preparing for meaningful conversations.
It also allowed me to identify community-wide trends before they became larger challenges. When multiple chapter leaders raised similar concerns around recruitment, officer accountability, member engagement, or communication, I could quickly recognize those patterns and adjust my approach. Those insights informed educational programming, guided council initiatives, and helped me move from reactive advising to proactive coaching.
Across higher education, there are instances of fraternity and sorority professionals being asked to take on more responsibilities with less resources. Some are advising larger communities, managing increasingly complex issues, or navigating shifting institutional priorities. While our responsibilities continue to evolve, the core of our work remains unchanged: building and maintaining relationships with people.
Of course, using AI in our work requires thoughtful consideration. Professionals should follow institutional guidance regarding data privacy and avoid entering personally identifiable information or sensitive student data into platforms that are not approved for institutional use. We should also acknowledge the environmental impact of these technologies. Training and operating large AI systems requires substantial computing power, energy consumption, and water resources. I believe that, as educators, we should approach AI with the same critical thinking skills we expect from our students.
This does not mean avoiding AI altogether: it means using these tools thoughtfully and only when they add meaningful value. Not every task requires AI assistance, and mindful use matters.
Ultimately, I do not believe the future of fraternity and sorority advising is more automated. I believe it is more relational. The value of AI is not that it can write an email, summarize notes, or create a meeting agenda. The value is that it can create more time and mental space for the things only humans can do: build trust, challenge a student leader through a difficult decision, celebrate a chapter’s success, and remind students of their strengths.
Those responsibilities still belong to us.
About the Author
Taylor Harris currently serves as the assistant director of chapter & council services at Texas Tech University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations and social engagement from Tarleton State University and a master’s degree in higher education administration from Texas Tech. Taylor can be found watching sports, cooking, or hanging out with friends in her free time. Taylor is a proud Alumna of Phi Mu.
