The UAB Division of Student Affairs has many exceptional staff members who serve our students with professionalism, kindness, and integrity. Each month, based on a pool of nominations, the Professional Development Committee announces the Employee of the Month.

The July Employee of the Month is Stacy Rowan the assistant director for Fraternity & Sorority Life. Her excellent work ethic and commitment to UAB students and Student Affairs make her one to be celebrated.

What nominators said about Stacy Rowan

In Stacy’s time at UAB, she has gone above and beyond to live out the division’s values. Stacy takes significant ownership of her direct role overseeing the fraternity and sorority community. She believes in the work she does and demonstrates the value of fraternity/sorority involvement in not only her work life, but also personal life. Stacy has served on the board of the Birmingham Panhellenic Association. She participates in multiple fraternity professional conferences, such as the American Fraternity Association, and she has even advocated for (and executed) taking a group of UAB students to a local fraternal conference – these efforts connect her work at UAB to the profession more broadly. This past year, Stacy has taken on more responsibility with not only educating her students but also Student Affairs staff on the risks associated with hazing. For example, in addition to Hazing Prevention Week (a week of programming facilitated by Stacy), Stacy also presented this summer on hazing at the One Day Conference.

Stacy is also collaborative. For example, this year Stacy proposed a collaborative event between the fraternity and sorority community and the UAB Leadership and Service Council to demonstrate our shared commitment to community engagement. With her support, the students established the first Creed Week Rise Against Hunger event that resulted in more than 100 student volunteers. Although she oversees a specific student population, she is very intentional to ensure they are not siloed on campus. Rather, under her influence, the FSL community is represented in various other co-curricular experiences and are often turned to as a community of support for large-scale campus initiatives.

This past year, Stacy created training for FSL students to learn about issues of accessibility, belonging, inclusion, and equity through trainings on specific topics within those areas. She made this an annual goal and prioritized the development of a series like this to educate and support her students. Her efforts in this area have not only inspired her students but also, fellow staff members. Stacy is passionate on inclusion and equity within the sorority fraternity community, in the Division, and in our workplace. She has used her position and spirit of innovation to bring about change with the UAB FSL community. She acts with integrity. She is an advocate for her community and is consistent with modeling behaviors she teaches to her students. She is not afraid to tell a student no, but that no is always followed by the why. I admire this about Stacy, and I believe its one reason she’s been able to so quickly establish respect as a professional in our department and among her students.

Finaly, Stacy champions wellbeing. She has built in this value into a Fraternity and Sorority Life initiative called Health and Safety Training. She facilitated a bi-annual Health and Safety Training for chapter leaders of the fraternity and sorority community to increase knowledge and preparedness about risk behaviors most often affecting the fraternal community. In total, 216 UAB students participated in this experience during the last academic year.