There's a huge crowd for Greek Sing night at Georgia Tech. Students have come to the university's music and arts center for the popular annual show, where Greek-life students show off their singing and performing talents. This year, they're about to witness something unexpected. Karen Boyd, their dean of students, takes the stage with a band of students, all of them dressed in black and sporting sunglasses. They launch into Pink Floyd's "We Don't Need No Education" with Boyd singing.

"It brought the house down, because it's not what they were expecting," she says. Boyd has been a fan of Pink Floyd since her college years, and she has the concert relics to prove it. In her office at Georgia Tech, she displayed a cup she got at one of the group's concerts. Whenever students would drop by, the cup would sometimes lead to interesting conversations. Talking with a student from the Student Judicial Cabinet one day, she learned that he was a bass player and had a band. It led to the collaboration for the Greek Sing performance.

During her time at Georgia Tech, Boyd always looked for ways to get involved with students—heading skill-building retreats, performing in student productions, traveling with students to Europe, marching with the marching band. She's found that interacting with students creates an important relationship between student affairs and the student body. Her interactive philosophy and her Pink Floyd paraphernalia are now at Carnegie Mellon, where she is the new dean of student affairs.
Danielle Commisso (HS'06)