Q&A with former Director of Student Activities

Towson’s Student Government Association passed a resolution Feb. 2 honoring the dedicated time and service of Director of Student Activities and Student Government Association Advisor Dirron Allen. Allen served in this position for over 10 years, and will be moving to work as the Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Activities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Why did you start working at the Towson in the first place?

Oh, good question. You know I started working there at Towson because of all the possibilities. I thought Towson was headed in the right direction, and they were doing the right thing, it was a growing school with the right people here at the time I came to Towson University.

What was your favorite memory at Towson while you were here?

Oh, man. My favorite memory. Of all the memories, I would say my favorite memory is probably Tigerfest with Steve Aoki and I got on stage and I threatened the students that I would cancel the concert if they didn’t go back to their seats.
Long story short, before Steve Aoki came on the stage, Juicy J just stopped performing and so I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, all these students can’t be on the floor,’ because of all the risks that are associated with it. And then I remember going to the stage and threatening the students, saying ‘I’ll cancel the concert if you don’t go back to your seats in seven minutes’ and people joked with me later on saying, ‘Why seven minutes?’ It was just because five minutes seemed too short, ten minutes seemed too long, but seven minutes seemed like the perfect number. So, that was my only time ever on stage at Tigerfest.

What were you thinking when SGA presented you with the resolution in your honor?

I was flattered. I was emotional. I was sad, and I was just grateful that our students thought that I was worth any sort of recognition. You do this job for our student body and you see people grow and develop, and they chose the words they wanted to choose, and they took the time to put that together. It was very heartwarming. I regret not staying there and hugging everybody, I’m thinking my emotions got the best of me and I was just busting out in tears. I came down crying all over the place, only because of the kind of emotion and what that meant to me. I’m really grateful, unbelievably grateful.

How do you think working at the University of Virginia will be different than working at Towson?

You know, I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I’ll miss people like Terry Hall [and] Deb Moriarty. I’ll miss staff members like Grady Sheffield, Matt Lenno, Beth Steiner. You know, I’m going to miss these folks, and to think of the people I won’t have with me when I go down there.

– Compiled by Sarah Rowan

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