UNM Senior Earns Sorority Top Honor

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico nurs­ing stu­dent Shawna Nel­son is the 2011–2012 mem­ber of the year for the country’s old­est and largest Native Amer­i­can sorority.

Nel­son, a nurs­ing senior from Winslow, Ariz., was named PI of the Year at the national con­ven­tion of Alpha Pi Omega Soror­ity, Inc. Pre­sented annu­ally, the award is Alpha Pi Omega’s high­est indi­vid­ual honor.

“The awards com­mit­tee received sev­eral qual­ity appli­ca­tions this year,” Grand Awards Com­mit­tee chair­woman Danielle McLean said. “Shawna’s truly stood out from the pack, though.”

Pres­i­dent of the sorority’s chap­ter at UNM and the school’s Mul­ti­cul­tural Greek Coun­cil, Nel­son was nom­i­nated by her regional adviser, who works with chap­ters in New Mex­ico, Okla­homa, Ari­zona and Kansas. She turned in a port­fo­lio out­lin­ing her accom­plish­ments in acad­e­mia, com­mu­nity ser­vice, cam­pus involve­ment and soror­ity involve­ment. Nel­son is the chapter’s first national award win­ner since Alpha Pi Omega expanded to the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico in 2004.

“On behalf of the Greek Life office at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, our staff would like to con­grat­u­late Shawna Nel­son on top hon­ors within her soror­ity,” said Jon Gayer, UNM Greek Life adviser. “We are proud to see her being rec­og­nized for all of the hard work she has put into the chap­ter and the university.”

In addi­tion to Nelson’s award, the Delta Chap­ter was rec­og­nized for hav­ing the high­est chap­ter grade point aver­age among the sorority’s under­grad­u­ate chap­ters and expan­sion sites. This is Delta’s first chap­ter award since 2008.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu