Staff: Margaret Turner

On the tennis court, Margaret Turner is as competitive as anyone. Off the court, she competes for top students as the director of admissions and recruiting in the Honors College at East Carolina University.

“I’m really competitive when I’m on the tennis court,” she said. “I’m pretty competitive anyway.”

Turner didn’t start playing tennis until after her husband, John, took lessons and sold her on the sport about six years ago.

“I’ve always been a workout nut, so we just started playing and I have not stopped,” she said. “I definitely like the workout and how it checks a lot of boxes for me. No. 1 is the workout, but No. 2 is the social aspects to it. I’ve met a ton of great people playing tennis. I’ve met a lot of ECU people who honestly I would have never met — faculty and staff that play.”

Turner, who is originally from Hickory, graduated from N.C. State with a degree in industrial engineering and began working at Burroughs Wellcome. She found her way to ECU and the fledgling engineering program when she started to help recruit students as part of a summer program. That turned into an opportunity as the marketing and recruitment coordinator for the program.

“The engineering program was brand new at the time, so we were just trying to get the word out that ECU had engineering,” she said. “I traveled around and recruited students into the program… Having the engineering degree and having worked as an engineer, it sort of validated me speaking about the field of engineering, and so when I was out recruiting, I think that really helped because I was able to talk to students about my own experiences.”

From there, she made a move into the Honors College, where her engineering skills play a role in helping her recruit the best high school students around.

“In terms of my job now, I think organization and those types of skills come into play,” she said. “I’m a data person, so I like using data to inform my decision making, even with recruitment. I can look and see what area we’re getting students from and focus efforts there. It helps me to be able to analyze data in terms of our diversity recruitment efforts and things like that. I also did a decent amount of public speaking as an engineer so that certainly helps because I feel like I talk for a living now when I’m on the road recruiting. Both of those help in my world today.”

She credits Honors College Dean David White and the staff for creating an environment that allows the college to flourish.

“The staff in our building — truthfully because we’re small — we’re a very tightknit group,” Turner said. “We all carry each other’s burdens to an extent. Even though we all have our own unique roles, everybody is willing to step up and help the next person. Everybody picks up duties for everyone else, and I think that’s probably my favorite thing. I never worry about anyone not helping me and not supporting me. And besides that, we just have a lot of fun.”

That support is essential, she said, when trying to recruit students to the Honors College.

“In the challenging world of admissions and recruitment, you have to try new things. You can’t rely on the same old, same old,” she said. “It’s a very competitive market. When you think about recruiting Honors College students, it’s very similar to recruiting athletes because they have a lot of offers coming out of high school. ECU is one of many offers, and my goal is to convince them of why ECU should move to the top of their list.”

She said it’s not a hard sell. Her goal is to build relationships and show students a picture of ECU that they may not have seen before.

“There’s three words that I use to sum up the Honors College — scholarship, community and opportunity,” she said. “All students get scholarships, and that’s nice, but the community — not just within honors but ECU as a whole — and the amount of opportunities that are available to them as an ECU student are what most students have no idea of.

“They don’t understand that they can do research, study abroad, do internships and be competitive for fellowships, and be successful and get into whatever graduate or professional program that they want, and for high ability students, those things are very front and center. You have got to be able to pique their interests in something beyond the classroom, and ECU does a remarkable job with those types of high-impact experiences. I think a lot of students realize they can go anywhere and get a good degree, especially in North Carolina where we have so many opportunities, but they really do have so many unique ways of adding to that academic experience at ECU.”

She said while Honors College students are known for doing amazing things, they also help each other and work to support their fellow students.

“It’s really refreshing to me because probably the thing I enjoy most about it is that, yes, they are amazing students and they are doing incredible things, but at the same time they’re genuine, they’re humble and they’re just normal students,” Turner said. “They are the total package. They can do these amazing things, but it’s not a cutthroat environment. They’re often reading each other’s essays for graduate school or doing mock interviews with each other. When somebody gets an award, they’re the first people to send congratulations. Credit to our staff because they helped to build that environment, but from a recruitment side of it, those are the types of students I’m looking for — those well-rounded, amazing yet humble and sincere students.”

With two sons of her own — Nate, who graduated from ECU in 2019, and Sam, who is an ECU senior — she takes special pride in watching Honors College students she has recruited graduate.

“I feel like I kind of become a mom to a lot of these students,” Turner said. “They come in here just to talk about life or whatever is going on with them. They’re trying to make decisions about their next steps, and they remember that I was there for them when they were in high school trying to make that decision about college and they feel comfortable coming to me, and that is very rewarding to me. It’s the ultimate reward seeing their success.”

And that’s what the university is all about.

“At ECU, we talk about it all the time, but we live it, and that is student success,” Turner said. “I think the focus on student success here is unparalleled as compared to anywhere else I’ve ever been.”

For Turner, that makes talking about ECU to students and their parents a joy.

“I really enjoy my job because people are my passion,” she said. “I get to meet amazing people from across our state and beyond and get to share with them the amazing things that are going on at ECU. In order to be successful in my role, I have to be genuine and passionate about ECU and the Honors College. It’s very easy to be both.”

READ MORE PIRATE PROFILES:

FAST FACTS

Name: Margaret Turner

Title: Director of Admissions and Recruiting for the Honors College

Hometown: Hickory

Colleges attended and degrees: North Carolina State University, Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering

PIRATE PRIDE

Years working at ECU: Nine

What I do at ECU: I am responsible for recruiting high ability students to ECU in the Honors College and overseeing the admissions process for the Honors College.

What I love about ECU: Definitely the people! I fell in love with ECU because of the down-to-earth nature of faculty, staff and students. I recognized ECU as a gem in North Carolina very quickly. Faculty and staff genuinely care about student success. And the loyal alumni have Pirate pride that is contagious.

What advice do you give to students? Be kind. Love people. Be true to you. Find your passion and do something related to it!

QUICK QUIZ

What do you like to do when not working? Play tennis, work out, hike, attend sporting events and just about anything outdoors. I love spending time with my husband and two sons!

Last thing I watched on TV: Sports, sports and more sports. I’m an ESPN and Tennis Channel addict.

First job: Industrial engineer for Burroughs Wellcome Company (pharmaceutical manufacturing) in Greenville

Guilty pleasure: Carrot cake from Confection Connection

Favorite meal: Grilled chicken and shrimp, hot off the grill

One thing most people don’t know about me: I’m an identical twin. It’s scary how similar we are, not just in looks but personality. (Sister Beth is also an engineer and works for the Atlanta Falcons).