Amy Vojta Recognized for Work with Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs
In December 2023, Amy Vojta, an Assistant Dean in Fraternity and Sorority Affairs in the Division of Student Affairs, was recognized by the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors (AFA) with the Dr. Robert H. Shaffer Award.
This was not a new experience for Vojta. In her twenty-eight-year career with the Division of Student Affairs in New Brunswick, Vojta has received eleven awards, including an award named in her honor from the AFA, for her work with Rutgers Greek Life, and currently serves as president of the Central New Jersey Alumane Panhellenic Association.
“Last winter, I had the privilege of going to the Northeast Greek Leadership Association with Amy,” said Lia DiDonna, who served as the Panhellenic Council president from 2021-22. “She really was a big name to everyone there; they all looked up to her.”
At Rutgers, though, Vojta is known among colleagues, students, and alumni for her professionalism, work ethic, and her emphasis on centering students in her work.
“In my first year, I would go to her with questions, and she would give me the answers,” said DiDonna. “In the second year, though, our relationship really deepened. I would present her with ideas, she would give them back to me, and we would workshop them together.”
This approach bore fruit. As President, for example, Vojta encouraged DiDonna to build connections with the department of Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance (VPVA), leading to a partnership for VPVA’s Smash the Patriarchy event, as well as continued collaboration between the Panhellenic Council and VPVA.
DiDonna was echoed by Fareen Siddiqui, who served as the president of the Coalition of Women of Color (CWC) in the 2022-23 academic year, and who currently serves as the president of the Panhellenic Council.
“I could just tell from the get-go how much trust she had in us as students to really move this forward,” Siddiqui said. “We would tell her about the things that we wanted to get done, and she would say, ‘Here’s how I can help you. Here’s the resources that I can bring. Here’s some ideas on people that I could connect you with.’”
“She does her best to give us the resources necessary to make our ideas successful, and to make sure that important conversations that we need to have are had.”
Vojta, for her part, sees this attitude as central to her work and success.
“This isn’t the Amy show,” she said. “I try to paint students a picture of what might be useful for them and their situation, then give them parameters of what they could do.”
“I’m not going to give a sophomore president something that they can’t execute,” Vojta added, “But I want them to have a good experience and to spend the year putting their thumbprint on their work, so that at the end they’re proud of what they have accomplished.”
And while the exact type of work that Vojta has done over her twenty-eight years at Rutgers has changed, her approach to issues and challenges has remained consistent.
“When I met Amy, she was the president of her Panhellenic Council, and she was a creative and bold leader,” said JoAnn Arnholt, the director of OFSA. “Since she came to work at Rutgers, our challenges have ranged from small budgets, lean staffing, new technology, the needs of an ever-growing fraternity and sorority community, and the challenges students face in college life.”
“Her approach to all these challenges has always been based on assessing the situation, determining an appropriate plan of action, and executing the plan,” Arnholt added. “Amy is an active listener, and she has a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience working with fraternity and sorority students.”
The impact of Vojta’s work over these past decades is clearly visible. Three new sororities have joined Rutgers—New Brunswick campus life, thousands of students have joined Greek Life organizations, and, most recently, Greek Life-wide recruitment and membership numbers have fully rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns.
The work that students and staff have done has also been recognized beyond Rutgers; most recently, the Panhellenic Council received an award from the National Panhellenic Council for its work in the 2021-22 academic year.
And, beyond the individual awards that Vojta has received, the impact of her work is obvious to the students who have worked with her. “Amy is the backbone of Panhellenic,” Siddiqui said. “It always feels like she has the answer, like she can always provide the tools that we need to succeed, and I don’t know where we’d be without her.”
