Going Greek

For Maury Gaston ’82, Megan Crouch ’97, Anna Buckner ’95 and other Greek alumni, sororities and fraternities are more than social clubs. These three Auburn alumni credit their Greek organizations for molding them into better spouses, parents, citizens and leaders. And as they’ve climbed to the highest ranks of their organizations, they hope to pass on their experience to a new generation of young men and women.

Small-town kid to regent

“I grew up seeing the ring on my father’s finger, seeing his fraternity composite on the wall in his study, seeing his initiation certificate and hearing him speak with his chapter brothers,” Gaston said. “We’d occasionally go to tailgates at the chapter house and I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

During college, Gaston served a term as recorder and two years as treasurer. In these roles, he learned how to work with people, how to accomplish goals—and how to make hard decisions.

“I think Greek life is an incubator for leadership. Now, can you be an excellent leader and not come from a Greek background? Absolutely, but Greek life can take a naive, awkward, small-town kid like me, and provide an incubator to develop latent skills that may never otherwise be developed,” he said.

Gaston graduated with a mechanical engineering degree and went into technical sales working for AMERICAN Cast Iron Pipe in Birmingham. Listen to Gaston talk about his engineering career on the #GINNing podcast.

For the next 15 years, he worked in various branches of the company including New York City, Orlando, Sacramento and Dallas. While in New York in the 1980s, he helped recharter Auburn’s New York City alumni club, which had been dormant.

By 1997, Gaston moved back to Birmingham where he met his wife, Nancy. A few years later, he became a member of the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council and is still involved with the organization today. From 2013-2016, he served as chairman.

When Gaston settled in Birmingham, he was asked to join the Sigma Nu’s House Corporation, and a few years later, he was promoted to regional and national roles like division commander and grand chaplain. He was elected to high council and later became regent-elect then regent, which is the national president of Sigma Nu. In this role, he currently serves about 11,000 Sigma Nu student members across the country, 200,000 alumni and 155 active chapters.

Since becoming Regent, Gaston discovered that everyone in a Sigma Nu chapter loves their chapter as much as he loves his, but not everyone loves their university as much as members of the Auburn Family loves Auburn University.

“Studies have shown that Greek students express a higher satisfaction rate with their collegiate experience, have a stronger affinity for their university and they give more towards fundraising efforts for the college. At Auburn, about 70% of our private donations come from fraternity and sorority alumni,” Gaston said.

Sigma Nu specifically has a rich history on Auburn’s campus from prominent members like local founder Jesse Culver, who scored the first touchdown in the first Deep South football game against Georgia in 1892, to William Thorington Wood, who wrote the Auburn alma mater. There are also six buildings on campus named by or for Sigma Nu alumni.

“It changed the trajectory of my life”

Megan Crouch, from Tulare, Calif., became one of the first in her family to join a sorority. During her sophomore year at California State University Northridge, she struggled to find her place on campus, so she decided to become a member of Alpha Xi Delta.

Being part of Greek life allowed Crouch to gain a stronger sense of community on campus while attending the commuter school in Los Angeles. She immediately jumped into leadership roles in her local chapter, joining the executive committee. She served as vice president and chapter president.

Through connections in her sorority, Crouch had the opportunity to complete an internship with the City of Burbank, Calif., which gave her experience to pursue her career. She completed her undergraduate urban studies degree in 1993 then traveled with her national sorority for two years. While traveling across the country, Crouch utilized this time to consider her graduate school options, one being Auburn University.

“I ultimately selected Auburn for all that it had to offer, from the atmosphere to the city to the community on campus and the community planning program. I was impressed with the academic offerings at the time, the professors that I met and the degree program itself,” she said.

On top of that, Crouch had the opportunity to be an advisor for the Alpha Xi Delta Auburn chapter. She volunteered to do statistics for the Auburn University women’s basketball team, which is where she met her husband, Matthew Crouch ‘21, who worked for the athletic department.

“The whole entire panhellenic system at Auburn is highly respected nationwide. A lot of the chapters here are some of the top-performing chapters in our organizations,” Crouch said. “In the collective sorority, women provide a good space for healthy college experiences.”

After completing her graduate degree in community planning, Crouch continued working for the City of Auburn. She started as a city planning intern and worked her way up the ladder into different positions that eventually led her to become city manager in 2021.

In 2019, Crouch was placed on the Alpha Xi Delta National Board as vice president and served two terms. In 2023, she was named national president. In this role, she serves 130 chapters and about 171,000 members across the country.

Chi Omega in her blood

“Auburn was an easy decision for me, because I had always dreamed of playing tennis for Auburn. Both of my parents graduated from Auburn, and I grew up loving and being around Auburn,” Buckner said. “Both of my brothers attended Auburn, my husband received his MBA from Auburn and my son was a walk-on football player at Auburn.”

BYU did not have Greek organizations, so Buckner was excited to join recruitment when she transferred to Auburn as a junior, following in her mother’s footsteps.

“I had grown up sitting around the kitchen table in red owl-shaped chairs as my mother was a proud Auburn Chi Omega herself, so you could say that Chi Omega was engrained in me from a young age,” Buckner said.

The Chi Omega family embraced Buckner and provided a sense of community with a built-in support group of women. Buckner’s sorority sisters were always present at her tennis matches to cheer her on. Buckner also got to serve her sorority in different leadership roles, including chapter president, and she became a member of several honor societies, including Order of Omega, Mortar Board and Cater Society. Listen to Buckner talk about her initiation into Auburn’s Chi Omega chapter, Alpha Beta and her current role in Chi O.

In 1993, Buckner completed her bachelor’s degree in secondary education mathematics. From 1994-1995, she traveled for Chi Omega as a National Leadership Consultant while pursuing her master’s degree in business administration at Auburn. She competed in professional tennis events and began working for the Southeastern Conference, assisting with sports events and marketing efforts. During this time, she enrolled in law school and graduated from Cumberland School of Law in 1999.

Buckner stayed involved with Chi Omega through volunteering. In 2012, she was nominated as the national vice president and served two nonconsecutive terms. In between those terms, she served four years as national treasurer. Buckner was slated as national president in 2024 where she is currently serving her first term. In this position, she oversees 181 chapters and over 418,000 women. Chi Omega is the largest women’s Greek organization out of 26 National Panhellenic Conference organizations and has a rich 130-year history.

The Auburn chapter has produced numerous national leaders for Chi Omega over the years and has made three prominent gifts to Auburn’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Arts. The Annie Terrell Basore Memory Garden in the heart of Auburn’s Campus is also a gift from the Chi Omega chapter.

“I am honored to serve Chi Omega as national president. In any organization, you have to have a ‘secret sauce,’ and for us, I always say it is our people all working together to continue the mission and vision of the sorority,” Buckner said. “Chi Omega is not just something I belong to–Chi Omega is a part of me.”

By Lauren Johnson