This fall, ETSU has more than Alpha Omicron Pi as an addition to the Greek community. There is also a new director of fraternity and sorority life, Shawn Dowiak.
Dowiak graduated from Ramapo college in Mahwah, New Jersey, located about an hour north of New York City. He is an alumni, former executive director and national president of Tau Delta Phi fraternity. He has also served Tau Delta Phi as director of public relations and as international president.
In 2006, Dowiak was presented the Convention Key, the highest award given by his fraternity. He has also served as a delegate and committee member for the North-American Inter-fraternity Conference and taught at many higher education and secondary education facilities.
Dowiak started his doctoral program in Fall of 2012 in education and higher education administration, finishing his dissertation in May 2016.
“I applied at ETSU because I knew I wanted a director’s position in fraternity and sorority life,” Dowiak said.
“I had already worked at my national headquarters and I had wanted to work in fraternity and sorority life because that’s what I did my dissertation on,” he said. “I also knew I wanted to work in the Southeast at a directors-level position. This was the perfect fit.”
Dowiak said that he sees a bright future for Greek life at ETSU.
“I see a community that really wants to expand and expansion is a big thing for the future for sorority and fraternity life here,” he said. “Right now we’re in the process of adding a multi-cultural Greek council and one new fraternity and sorority are coming on campus this fall.”
He continued by explaining that the existing Greek organizations have gotten larger and larger every year, signaling the demand for an overall larger Greek community on campus.
Dowiak is hoping to to bring Kappa Alpha Si on campus in the next semester for the National Honors Panhellenic Council and Alpha Omicron Pi has just started this semester in the National Panhellenic Council. He explained that ETSU was given an extension in the NPC groups for the North-American Inter-fraternity Conference. In addition, this month the national headquarters of Alpha Sigma Phi will be visiting to approve the fraternity on campus in the fall, so that is another extension for the IFC fraternities.
“There is expansion throughout the whole system,” Dowiak said. “Another thing that’s happening is that we’re working on evaluating the way that we do things in each of the councils, like the bi-laws that we use and the way that we’re structured and organized. We’re really trying to put the structure together so that we have a stronger values-based fraternity and sorority system and can keep moving forward.
Dowiak sees Greek life at ETSU continuing to expand over the years and is enthusiastic about fostering that process.
