Fraternity and sorority students at Centenary recognized for achievements
SHREVEPORT, LA — Gage Dabin, a senior from St. Louis, Missouri, has been chosen as a 2018 recipient of the E. Fleming Mason Memorial Internship Program offered by Kappa Alpha Order. Dabin, a member of Centenary’s Alpha Iota chapter, is one of only five Kappa Alpha undergraduates from across the country chosen for this competitive and prestigious summer opportunity. Dabin is a past vice president and president of the Alpha Iota chapter and has been active in many other student organizations during his career at Centenary.
The E. Fleming Mason Memorial Internship Program was created to provide an opportunity for Kappa Alpha members to gain professional work experience while living in the Washington, D.C. area. In addition to internships with United States legislators, lobbyists, political fundraisers, and other related professionals, Mason Memorial interns participate in fundraising events, workshops, and the annual Chiefs of Staff Luncheon. The goal of the internship program is to assist Kappa Alpha members interested in politics in becoming better educated and informed about both the private business sector and our national government.
“I am extremely humbled and thankful for the opportunity that I have been given by KA to intern in D.C. this summer with our other KAs,” says Dabin. “As the first ever recipient from my chapter, I hope to use this opportunity to show the younger men in my chapter that they too can achieve whatever they set their minds to.”
Dabin will be interning in the office of Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, combining legislative and administrative duties with work on the press team. He will begin the internship experience with a stop in Lexington, Virginia, where he and the other Mason Memorial interns will tour the Kappa Alpha Order National Administrative Office as well as the historic city of Lexington. While in Washington, D.C., the interns are housed at The George Washington University. At the conclusion of the internship, Dabin will be attending the George Mason University-Antonin Scalia School of Law to work toward his JD with an emphasis in national security law.
Kappa Alpha’s internship program honors E. Fleming Mason, the first director of the South Carolina Highway Patrol in the late 1930s and later a career FBI agent. An initiate of the Beta Pi Chapter of Kappa Alpha at Presbyterian College in 1929, Mason was a very active alumnus who helped many KAs find summer employment and potential careers after graduation.
Centenary’s sororities, Chi Omega and Zeta Tau Alpha, also recently received an important award from the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), an umbrella organization for 26 national and international sororities. NPC recognized Centenary’s Panhellenic community for posting an all-sorority average GPA that was higher than the campus’s all-women’s average during the 2017 calendar year.
“Scholarship is one of the four pillars of fraternity and sorority life, and both Chi Omega and Zeta Tau Alpha enumerate scholastic achievement as an organizational value in their creeds,” says Kimberly Davis, assistant director of residence life at Centenary and advisor to the Panhellenic Council. “Centenary’s Panhellenic women are involved in all facets of campus life, including a variety of majors, athletic teams, and extracurricular activities, but they all share a desire for good scholarship. The Academic Recognition Award is an outward, visible indicator of academic success on our campus that we can be proud to share with others.”