Edward Whipple acclaimed for contributions to fraternity life

Edward Whipple, vice president for student affairs, was honored July 10 by the Fraternity Executives Association with the Order of Fraternity Excellence Award. The honor was presented at the group’s annual meeting in Keystone, Colo.

Edward Whipple

The award is presented to a college or university administrator "who has obtained a level of professional accomplishment, relating to the college fraternity, which is of such excellence as to merit single recognition by the association." Whipple is the first person to win the award since 2001. The Fraternity Executives Association is comprised of directors and staffs from 59 national and international fraternities and sororities.

Whipple, a member of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity from Hanover College (Ind.), began his higher education career as coordinator of Greek Affairs at Iowa State University. Following that, he served as associate dean of students at Texas Tech University, dean of students at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, and vice president for student affairs at Montana State University-Billings. In each of these roles, he had responsibility for fraternity and sorority oversight.

His alumni involvement with Phi Delta Theta includes serving as its scholarship commissioner, as a member of the General Council, and as the international president of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, from 1992-94. He also was director of the first Leadership College in 1987 and has been a National Interfraternity Conference delegate.

He currently is the national president of Order of Omega, the Greek leadership and scholarship honorary with 300 chapters in the United States and Canada.

This is the second time this year Whipple has been recognized by a national organization. In March, he was named vice president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Foundation Board of Directors.

He has been a member of the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges since 1993 and was elected to the National Association of State and Land Grant Colleges Student Affairs Council Executive Committee in 2003.

Since 1994, Whipple has been vice president for student affairs at BGSU and an adjunct associate professor of higher education and student affairs.