Meet a trailblazer who guides young people to carve out their own paths.

We’ve all met those people who exude such joy through their big smiles and warm personalities that they make us smile right back. Victoria White is one of them; so, it’s no wonder she is filling an important role at Sam Houston State University, helping to encourage today’s campus leaders into becoming the community leaders of tomorrow. It is also no surprise that her influence reaches far beyond the university.

Walking into the Greek Life offices to meet Victoria White, the Assistant Dean of Fraternity and Sorority Life at SHSU, signs of activity are everywhere. An entry table is stacked full of clear goody bags of orange and white giveaways, leftovers from Greek Week. The receptionist cheerfully ushers me into the back corner office, where White greets me with a warm welcome. Little sayings about life and leadership are posted around the room, and a colorful block set of Greek letters shows off White’s pride in being a member of her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.

What’s not immediately obvious is just how multifaceted White is. There is far more to her than just her pretty sorority smile. She is a leader, a mentor, and a church pastor. She is a volunteer, a singer, and a former musical theater performer. Also, if it weren’t for the keen eye of the Postcards photographer I was paired with for this story, I would have missed that she and a group of fellow Gospel singers (which she put together for a Hurricane Harvey relief shelter a few years back) performed on the Jimmy Fallon Show! There’s a small, framed photo of them on the bookcase behind her desk.

A 2012 graduate of Sam Houston State, White came to the university to study musical theater. She joined the Soul Lifters gospel choir while she was a student, and it was friends from that organization that she pulled together to sing for people who had been displaced from their homes by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The group’s performance was filmed and put on YouTube, and the next day White was fielding calls from Good Morning America and the Jimmy Fallon Show, who wanted to feature them in order to help raise funds for Hurricane Harvey relief. Not long afterward, they were flying to New York City to perform on both shows for a national television audience.

While White was attending university, she began working at SAAFE House part-time as a receptionist, and as a result, she began to find a different calling than musical theater. She ended up with a degree in mass communications and public relations, and went to work at SAAFE House as a victim rights advocate and community education coordinator before coming to Sam Houston State.

While she was at SAAFE House, she met Kim Weiser, who subsequently left to become the executive director at CASA of Walker County. Since joining Sam Houston’s staff, White has continued to volunteer and coordinate student volunteer efforts with both non-profits.

“I like to volunteer and support people in our community. Sometimes I have time to the do volunteering myself, but a lot of times I will connect with other people and use my resources to get the work done,” she explained, saying she had done everything from speaking at CASA leadership events to wrapping gifts for children at Christmas.

The year 2016 – the year she came to SHSU – was not just a pivotal year in White’s career, but was also the year she became an ordained pastor at Spirit of Integrity church in Livingston, the church her parents founded in 2004.

“This is something I never, ever thought I’d be doing with my life. I became an ordained minister while my parents were still alive, but I thought my role was just to support them in what they were called to do,” White said. Then after my dad passed in 2016, I had planned on moving away, but some elders asked me to consider being the pastor. I agreed to do it on just an interim basis until they found someone else, but then I discovered I really liked it, and I was good at it! With some wise counsel and lots of prayer, I thought, yeah, for now, I think this is something I’m supposed to be adding to my life!”

Seven years later, the church is thriving, with about 75 members who come from as far as Lufkin and Missouri City, southwest of Houston, to attend.

“It’s not a huge church – I don’t think I could pastor a larger church,” she said. “Pastoring is a big job – connecting with people, being a support for people, being responsible for people and their growth, and making sure they feel like they are cared for. That’s a lot, so I’ve told God 150 people is my max!”

Asked if she pulls from her ministry in her work with students, and vice versa, White explained that she sees her job as an extension of her faith.

“As a Christian, it’s about loving God and loving people. As a pastor, I know people need to feel connected and cared for. These students are dealing with a lot, and they are just people before they are members of sororities and fraternities.”

She continued by saying she reads a lot of authors like John Maxwell, who may have a Christian background but aren’t saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus everywhere. “The overtone of connecting and prioritizing relationships with people, I think is the underlying theme in most of Maxwell’s teachings.”

“It’s the concept of prioritizing people as people and not as positions. And so, when a student comes into my office and they’re under all this pressure and worried about their role as the chapter president or treasurer who doesn’t have enough money and is scared this fundraiser’s not going to be as successful as they need it to be, I’m going to try and connect with them as a person, not just a position.”

“These are young adults just trying to figure things out, and a lot of times they don’t know what they don’t know, they don’t know where to go when they don’t know, and for some reason, our paths have crossed. I want to just offer whatever support I can and connect with them on a personal level before we start talking about what could have been or what should have been and what’s still able to be.”

White has many opportunities to cross paths with students of all kinds at Sam Houston. When she first joined the university, she was in admissions for several years, until she got tired of traveling full-time.

“It was so much fun to connect with prospective students, but then when they got here, I’d never see them, so I knew I couldn’t do that long term. I need something where I can see the progress and growth of students on their journey here,” she explained.

It was then that she transferred into the academic affairs department, where she served as the assistant director of the Academic Success Center, helping first-year students adjust to college life. She was in that role for three years before she joined Fraternity & Sorority Life department a year ago as assistant dean.

“My last role was really academic, classroom-related work. What I’m doing now is more mentorship, developing soft skills, leadership and character traits,” she stated. “It’s kind of building on skills they already possess and encouraging them to keep going on paths they are already going down, asking how I can be a resource and support them in that.”

Just as she strives to see people as just people, she encourages students to do the same as they interact with each other during everyday student life, including when they are looking to choose the right sorority or fraternity to join.

“I always encourage people to do your research and get to know the people. You can Google an organization and look at their website, but that doesn’t really tell you what the people are like on this campus,” she explained. “These are the people you’re going to be doing life with the next four years. These are the people you’re going to be building friendships and hopefully lifelong connections with. So you really want to go by not an article you’ve read, but by a personal connection you’ve been able to build. That’s how you’ll find a sense of belonging.”