Sigma Alpha Epsilon - Indiana University

AN UPDATE FROM THE CHAPTER PRESIDENT W hen I joined ΣAE Indiana Gamma, the first thing we were told was to not come to the house, since we were in trouble. My first time entering the house was initiation, and all we knew were sanctions. When I began my term as President, I had the responsibility to address sanction letters that were addressed to the three Presidents that served before me. However, we were filled with a house of people that wanted to see change and knew that we needed change. The shift from when I first came through the doors of ΣAE Indiana Gamma to where we are right now has been monumental. We are not perfect, and we know that we still have much to improve upon to get ΣAE Indiana Gamma back to where it rightfully belongs. However, I do not want to minimize the work that our brothers, with the advice of alumni, have done to get us where we are today. As I mentioned before, we had a pile of sanctions to accomplish. Brothers throughout the Chapter were able to band together and get them all completed on time. Our chapter coach said it was very refreshing to see our open dialogue with him and that we were being very proactive, so we knew what he was expecting in terms of the sanctions. Our alumni network also had a major hand in getting our sanctions done and we would not have been able to do it without their help. This was what led us to be able to finish all our sanctions on time which is something that has not happened in recent years. I wanted to highlight a few sanctions that were assigned to us which really benefited our Chapter in the short and long term: Executive Board Transition, Judicial Board Revitalization, and the True Gentleman Workshop. A lot of our sanctions were best practices that our Chapter should have been doing as good Chapter management and this is true for the Executive Board Transition and Judicial Board Revitalization. The first position I held in the Chapter was during my freshman year and I was the House Manager. I was thrown into the position, basically having to learn on the spot. However, we have now centralized important documents and provided descriptions for each position. This is also coupled with a period where the current position shadows the former position to learn what to do. We also revamped our entire Judicial Board process and made it more organized. This organization has led us to have a process that has enabled the Warden to issue more consequences than the previous three Wardens combined. We still have a ways to go in terms of accountability, but this was a great step in the right direction. The final sanction I want to highlight is the True Gentleman workshop. We split up into groups and went line by line saying what the True Gentleman means to everyone and this then turned into conversations that really got the brothers to open up and show past the surface level conversations that happen in passing. This was a very powerful sanction because aspects like the True Gentleman got brushed over in the past and this was a great way to bring it to the forefront. Another accomplishment that we were proud of as a Chapter is that we are off social probation for the first time in over two years. Now with the sanctions behind us I wanted to share a little about what we have planned for in the future. The Chapter has been under sanctions since 2019. The members of our Chapter have never been a part of a Fraternity when there were no sanctions. I brought up this concern with our chapter coach and asked the question "What's next?". After talking with him and our contact at nationals, we decided that the best step is to do a collaborative action plan with the members of the Chapter to see what goals we want to accomplish as a Chapter. The steps for this is to send out a survey to get the initial feedback over the summer. Then, combine all that information and present it at our first chapter meeting. This will serve to make sure we are doing what our chapter wants and this will increase chapter buy-in and participation, because everyone will feel it is what they want to do. We want to ask the question: What does it mean to be an ΣAE at Indiana University? Fraternally, Nico Nasti '23, Eminent Archon (630) 247-1249 | nnasti@iu.edu Brothers take canned goods to the Bloomington Food Bank. Jake Berry '23, Ross Welch '23, and Riley Keltner '23 package leftover food to take to the homeless shelter. THE INDIANA GRAM I N D I A N A G A M M A C H A P T E R O F S I G M A A L P H A E P S I L O N A T I N D I A N A U N I V E R S I T Y FALL 2021

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