Christina Witkowicki began her job as the head of Greek life amid a hailstorm of allegations against five Greek-life chapters that have so far resulted in hazing charges against at least three.
As a result, the 30-year-old said she is trying to build relationships with the University’s fraternities and sororities as GW’s Greek community wades into completely unknown territory.
“I was able to learn a lot about the chapters and have a lot of really good discussions with chapters really early on,” Witkowicki said. “Not that they had to trust me, but they had to sit down and have those conversations and understand where I was coming from.”
The University has charged Kappa Kappa Gamma, Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Epsilon with hazing, underage drinking and providing alcohol to minors. Possible charges against Delta Gamma and Pi Kappa Phi have yet to be announced.
Witkowicki, who previously served as the director of Greek life at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., was hired five months after Dean Harwood, the previous Greek life director, left in June. Harwood was popular among the chapters for fighting for Greek interests and for spurring the community’s growth – more than 25 percent of students now wear Greek letters at GW. Following that legacy, Witkowicki said she is working to strike a balance between leader and advocate.
“They’re never really sure – are you a resource for them, are you going to be a good advocate for them?” Witkowicki said. “I think sometimes students may get confused in terms of thinking advocacy is always going to bat for them, where sometimes going to bat for them does mean holding them accountable for certain things.”
At Bentley, former Interfraternity Council President Daniel Boyer said Witkowicki made positive changes for the Greek community during her two years there.
Boyer said Witkowicki wanted the Greek community to be responsible for its own actions – a similar creed she is pushing now.
Boyer described a somewhat “negative response” to some of the changes Witkowicki implemented. The changes prompted comments posted in articles about Greek life in Bentley’s student newspaper, the Vanguard. Students accused her of not representing the Greek community positively, Bentley’s former Panhellenic President Emily Downs said. Both Boyer and Downs agreed most of the animosity died down within a semester.
“We realized these changes would have to be made one way or another,” Boyer said.
At GW, the presidents of the Panhellenic Association, Interfraternity Council and Multicultural Greek Council all said Witkowicki has made a positive impact on the Greek community in the short time she’s been here, bringing enthusiasm to her new role.
“She got acclimated to the GW Greek community very fast, with a clear plan and a clear idea on where she wants to take GW,” MGC President Meshach Cisero said.
With some of the turbulence that occurred last semester, including a crackdown on drinking policies that had previously not been strictly enforced, Witkowicki said the Greek community has been able to “get some of that bad stuff just out of the way.”
“It’s about using some of those things that happened and seeing how we can move on,” she said.
Witkowicki said hazing and alcohol education remain her biggest priorities, but said building community across the Greek-life system is also an important step toward making GW’s Greek community “the premier Greek community in the U.S.” – one of her priorities when she started here.
“I don’t think size will determine who’s a premier Greek community or not,” she said. “I think that the quality of the organizations and councils is what will define that… they don’t have to be 100 percent of the campus, they don’t have to be 40,000 strong.”
She said the caliber of the students is one of the things that first attracted her to GW, as well as the support the Greek community receives from the University’s administration.
“Nowhere else in the country are universities purchasing land or restructuring current residence hall areas to suit fraternities and sororities to house them,” she said in reference to the University’s renovations of Strong Hall over the summer in preparation for Chi Omega and Pi Beta Phi moving in last semester.
Witkowicki said she is settling in at GW, living alongside 12 chapters in International House.
“They see me in the elevator with my laundry and in pajamas and with glasses on,” she said. “It makes me seem more like a person and that I can relate to them.”
