During its annual meeting, the Fraternity Executives Association (FEA) recognized Mandy Lee Womack, Gamma Sigma/San Diego State, with the 2025 Order of Fraternal Excellence Award. This is not an award that is given annually, rather, it is an award given by the Association when a college or university administrator has attained a level of professional excellence related to fraternity and sorority which merits recognition. Mandy is the first member of Kappa Alpha Theta to receive this prestigious award.
Mandy is in her 30th year of work at the University of San Diego where she currently serves as associate dean of students. She is also a doctoral candidate at San Diego State University. In addition to her professional tenure, Mandy is highly involved in several associations including the Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA), the Association of Fraternity and Sorority Advisors (AFA), the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).
“What Mandy’s resume fails to include, however, is her impact on the students she has worked with. Mandy approaches all her relationships with love, care, and a good dose of honesty,” said Kappa Alpha Theta nominator Katharine Murphy, Theta’s associate executive director. “Several of her former students have shared with me that she is the reason they pursued higher education or stayed involved in the fraternal community. Decades later, University of San Diego alumni reference lessons they have learned from Mandy.”
Mandy spends a great deal of time giving back to fraternal umbrella organizations and individual fraternities and sororities as a volunteer. She has facilitated leadership programming for organizations such as Beta Theta Pi, Lambda Chi Omega, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC). Her history of volunteerism with Theta is long-standing, and the members that work with her through her current role as college committee chair are lucky to receive her custom approach to each situation.
Katharine said, “Mandy has had an immeasurable impact on the University of San Diego and the interfraternal community. I believe that if you spend an hour with Mandy, even casually, and don’t walk away having learned something, you’re doing something wrong.”