Student Leadership Director Honored Twice by Greek Leadership Association
The director of student leadership at SUNY Plattsburgh is the recipient of two awards from the Northeast Greek Leadership Association given at its annual conference held last month in Pittsburgh.
Allison Swick-Duttine received the association’s 2026 Compass Award and its Northeast Region Order of Omega Mardie Trask Sorensen Chapter Advisor of the Year.
The Compass Award is NGLA’s highest honor, recognizing individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, service, and long-standing commitment to advancing fraternity and sorority life in the Northeast and beyond, according to the association. Recipients are recognized for their lasting contributions to student development, professional mentorship, and the strengthening of the fraternity and sorority community.
‘Respected Leader and Advocate’
According to Tom Murphy, NGLA executive director, throughout her career, Swick-Duttine “has been a respected leader and advocate for fraternity and sorority life throughout her career, most of which has been spent at SUNY Plattsburgh.”
“Known for her commitment to student growth, values-based leadership, and collaborative community building, she has played an important role in shaping positive fraternity and sorority experiences for students and professionals alike,” he said.
Murphy said Swick-Duttine “represents the very best of our community. Her leadership has influenced generations of students and professionals, and her commitment to creating meaningful fraternity and sorority experiences continues to make a lasting impact across our region.”
The 2026 NGLA Annual Conference welcomed fraternity and sorority student leaders, campus professionals, and organizational partners from across the Northeast for a weekend of leadership education, networking, and collaboration.
For Murphy and Swick-Duttine, that collaboration began in 2002 when they met on a
serendipitous road trip he took to SUNY Plattsburgh with a friend.
“When (he and his friend) arrived, we met Allison — with that unmistakable large smile and infectious enthusiasm,” Murphy said in his congratulatory speech. They went out to dinner and “spent hours talking about fraternity and sorority life — not just about programs or policies but about philosophy, about the student experience, about confronting the hard realities, about how we create communities that are safe, values-based and leadership-centered.”
Murphy said that over the past two decades, “Allison has become one of the people I most look forward to seeing at conferences, campus visits and industry gatherings. She is, without question, one of the true legends in our profession. Her students adore her. They seek her counsel years (after graduating). They credit her for helping them become better leaders, better citizens, better humans.”
Will Cangialosi is one of them. A SUNY Plattsburgh 2016 chemistry grad with a 2018 master’s in student affairs and higher education, he serves as director of fraternity and sorority life at Carnegie Mellon University.
Swick-Duttine hired Cangialosi as a student worker his junior year.
“I quickly learned that she doesn’t just work with students — she changes the trajectory
of their lives and how they think critically about the relationships and communities
around them,” he said at the event.
“Allison was the first person who helped me see myself as a leader,” Cangialosi continued. She helped find funds to send him to conferences, pushed him to present at NGLA and serve on its student staff, “and she helped me discover my purpose in fraternity and sorority advising. The lessons and philosophies I learned from Allison have remained guideposts for me throughout my career.”
It seemed highly appropriate then that Swick-Duttine was also recognized with the Order of Omega Mardie Trask Sorensen Chapter Advisor of the Year from NGLA. She was surprised by both.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I certainly didn’t expect it.”
Swick-Duttine’s connection with the NGLA reaches back before arriving at SUNY Plattsburgh.
“It’s how I found my way here,” she said.
SUNY Plattsburgh Connection
As grad student on the association’s conference staff, Swick-Duttine connected with conference director, former assistant to the vice president for student affairs at SUNY Plattsburgh, Dr. Ed Engelbride, who is now a professor of practice in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership, SUNY Albany School of Education.
“Ed contacted the grad staff and said, ‘Hey, if anyone is interested, we have a position at SUNY Plattsburgh,’ and here I am,” nearly 30 years later. “I’ve attended the conference (nearly) every year since 1998 and have taken students with me,” she said.
She previously served on the NGLA board of directors and helped in other ways as well, she said.
“So, the Compass Award was such an honor to receive,” Swick-Duttine said.
This year, eight of her students accompanied Swick-Duttine to Pittsburgh and were there to see her receive her awards.
In regard to Swick-Duttine’s leadership, her former student Cangialosi said it’s “quiet but powerful, humble but transformative.”
“She is a strategist, a visionary, a value-driven educator and one of the fiercest advocates for students you will ever meet,” he said. In thanking her, he said, “The imprint you’ve left on all of us (has) shaped the fraternal movement in ways that will last generations.”
— Story by Associate Director of Communications Gerianne Downs; Photos Provided
