View the Fall 2008 Alumni Newsletter

Pledge Educator’s Spring Report

The official end of pledging was recently marked by the initiation of twenty-two new brothers into New York Epsilon. Two Initiation Weeks were held for this class after two pledges became very ill with the flu on the first and third days of the first I-week. The older brothers all worked extremely hard and put on two excellent I-weeks back-to-back for the Fall 2008 Pledge Class.

It was a real honor to be the Pledge Educator for this group. They are all heavily involved in many different sports and campus organizations ranging from Men’s Soccer, to all three branches of ROTC, Red and White, and many other Division III and club sports. The dedication, zeal, and enthusiasm I’ve witnessed from this class are rarely paralleled and every pledge class in Sigma Alpha Epsilon should envy them. During pledging these guys refinished the basement party room walls for their class project; held a Big/Little Bro Line War competition for the brotherhood; threw their own Rumble in the Jungle theme party; and they held the most successful pledge class community service event this house has seen in a long time by raising over $200 and donating 65 hours to Joseph’s House. Most importantly through their pledging experience, these new brothers learned the value in coming together as a class and with the brotherhood as a whole.

My senior graduating class will be gone very soon, but after spending so much time with these new brothers, I can honestly say that the chapter will continue its stellar reputation on both a local and national level thanks to these new guys. My only regret is that I won’t be an undergrad long enough to witness where these guys will take the house.

Recruitment

Luau: SAE Luau is our biggest and most popular event during rush. This year we had limos picking freshmen up from campus, a pig roast, a live band, tours of the house, and volleyball. We had about 150 freshmen come to our luau. It was a great exposure for SAE and it was a great opportunity for us to meet potential recruits and show them what our fraternity is all about.

Lake House: Thanks to one of our alumni, Erik Saari, we were able to hold an event at his family’s lake house in Vermont. We had two boats to use for wakeboarding, water skiing, and tubing. It was a great time grilling burgers and hanging out with rushees, and the weather turned out to be very promising. We had about 30 rushees join us.

Pledge Education

From the fine recruitment/rush period we gave out 35 bids and now have 23 pledges.  Another successful year.  Now the pledges are a few weeks into the program.  Some of the things they have been up to include:

The Apartment Crawl: The Pledge class traveled to four different brothers’ residents in order to meet the out of house brothers. This event gave pledges a chance to get to know out of house brothers through games and activities.

Living In: Starting the week of November 2, the pledge class is required to live in the house for one week in three different groups. During live in week, the pledges got to spend more individual times with the brothers as well as gain a live in experience.

Scavenger Hunts: The 2008 fall pledge class participated in three scavenger hunts thus far. The first was a bonding experience that took us through Troy ending in Albany. The second was a friendly race to five different destinations around Troy teaching the class about SAE history, primarily the Big Five, and ending with prizes based on each team’s completion times. The third hunt was a combined our class with the Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority pledge class leading us around Troy. Each of these scavenger hunts went to further the bonding between the pledges as well as getting to know sisters of the Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority.

Community Service

On October 5th, SAE held its annual Farkouh Field Day. The event is held in honor of a brother who was very active with the Boys and Girls club of Troy and who had his life cut short by a drunk driving accident. The event is a field day which has local children from all the local elementaries come out for a day of fun and food with the men of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The event this year had great weather and over seventy five children were in attendance. The event is something that the children who come always say they thoroughly enjoy.

Community Relations

On September 16th 2008 the men of Sigma Alpha Epsilon held their annual Community Enrichment Dinner. The dinner was held in a fifteen table tent on the front lawn. Administrators, city officials, rushes, brothers, and alumni were in attendance. A total of one hundred and seven people attended the event and considered it a very enjoyable evening. That night the brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon donated a one thousand dollar check to the Children’s Miracle Network from the money we raised in the previous year. After dinner, prominent administration offered insightful words about the positive impact New York Epsilon has on campus. The event left a good feeling among everyone in attendance. 

Chapter Recognized by Troy City Hall for Community Service

New York Epsilon was honored by the Mayor of Troy as well as the entire City Council for the work we did on Earth Day this past spring. Brothers from our chapter went to the local cemetery to clear out brush, clean up shrubbery, reset knocked down gravestones, and clean up garbage. In addition, other brothers went to a nearby park to do similar environmental cleanup. After witnessing the character of our house and our dedication to the community, the Troy City Council invited us to City Hall on Thursday, September 04, 2008 to present us with a plaque and personally thank us for the kind deed. New York Epsilon is extremely proud to bring positive press to both the RPI Greek Community and Sigma Alpha Epsilon nationally. It is great to receive positive recognition for upholding the ideals of our fraternity and the True Gentleman. They were featured on the SAE National website and in the RPI Inside Rensselaer magazine.

Fall Alumni Weekend October 17-19, 2008

Check out what we had going on this year.  40 alumni were back from classes that spanned from 1964 to 2008.  Every year the third weekend in Octboer we will be hosting our alumni weekend.  It was a busy weekend of activities including a golf outing, LAE shareholders meeting, afternoon reception and dinner at the chapter house, retirement farewell to Jim "Surf" Owens as the long time LAE Treasurer, and elections of new LAE board members.  Contact Anthony Guidarelli or John Thomas for more information.  Please come back and visit the chapter and meet the current undergrads, the new pledges, their parents, and of course many of your alumni brothers.  

Annual Alumni LAE Phonathon April 20-22, 2008

We've completed the calls and have starting collecting the money.  So far we have received $22,590 out of the $22,550 pledged.  We surpassed our goal of $20,000, but have a few more pledges still outstanding.  We appreciate the great support financially in addition to the career networking.  Go to the Alumni Phonathon area to see past year's donor lists.  Hope you will add your name to the list this year!