Alpha Tau Omega - Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

| | | | | | Board of Trustees | | | | | | From a Board of Trustees per- spective, the state of the Gamma Gamma chapter is strong, and more importantly, getting stronger. Starting with well- deserved ATO National True Merit recognition last August, increasing em- phasis on academics, to another strong pledge class, to blowout performance on the chapter's Signature Event "Carmine's Convoy," we could not be prouder of this group of young men. Every significant chapter operation is going well, and while there is and al- ways will be room for improvement and need for change, there are no areas that require significant additional immediate attention, and I believe the chapter is well positioned to receive True Merit recognition again this summer. At Homecoming in October, we outlined these five key priorities for the Board of Trustees: 1). Work with the chapter to sustain the positive academic trend 2). Fine tune the scholarship program and continue expanding fundraising 3). Help the chapter develop a more im- pactful philanthropic Signature Event 4). Launch a non-officer alumni mentor- ing program 5). Help the chapter navigate member- ship growth (back to "normal" chapter size) The academic trend has shown significant improvement over the last several quarters until the latest quarter when performance, particularly with the newly initiated class, took a downturn. We are working with the chapter to better understand root causes of that downturn and identify ad- ditional measures to improve perfor- mance (okay, it was not going to keep going up indefinitely but this was a dis- appointing result). Regarding the scholarship pro- gram, several minor but important changes have been made in the initial year to the scholarship program (particularly emphasis on individual aca- demic improvement and not just recog- nizing the brothers at the top of the GPA spectrum), and alumni financial support of the program continues to be very posi- tive. The Signature Event, Carmine's Convoy, raised more than $44,000 for Rook's Resources is the true highlight of the year, which I have described as a walk off grand slam to use a baseball analogy. The social service program and entire chapter are well positioned to build on this event in future years to sup- port a wonderful charity led by one of our Gamma Gamma alumni, former Thomas Arkle Clark Award winner Thomas Reives, '08. The non-officer alumni mentor- ing program was launched, but it re- quires additional work and it's not yet clear if this will continue or if some hy- brid solution is a better option to provide some of the desired program benefits. Helping the chapter navigate membership growth as the fraternity ful- ly recovers from the lean membership years during COVID is ongoing and is a focus of both the BoT and the Housing Corporation Board and overall is going well. I mentioned there is always room for improvement, and two areas that we continue to work on closely with the chapter leadership are overall risk reduction and figuring out how to recruit and retain more freshmen. Nationally, there continue to be highly publicized examples of fraternity behavior that is both dangerous and un- lawful, and party management is, by far, the riskiest activity for any fraternity. Gamma Gamma has made several posi- tive changes to reduce party manage- ment risk in the last couple of years, but there is still need and room for improve- ment and chapter leadership is actively and continually evaluating the right changes to continue lowering the risk profile. The Gamma Gamma recruit- ment program has been significantly improved in the last couple of years, but we are still losing too many pledges due to grades (primarily), but also other rea- sons. This year only 23 of the original 33 pledges went active and that number includes several non-freshmen meaning the freshman class will be less than 20 despite the large number of initial pledg- es. Freshmen are the lifeblood of any fraternity, and figuring out how to in- crease the pool of freshmen candidates going through rush will be a key focus of the program this fall. The Board of Trustees remains committed to do whatever is necessary to sustain the chapter over the long term. The 14 current members of our board are highly dedicated and putting in the nec- essary effort to provide mentoring and requested guidance to this outstanding group of young men. With the finest physical asset, by far, of any Rose frater- nity, the strongest alumni support, and an active chapter that is hitting on all cylinders, we believe the chapter is posi- tioned to continue as the premier frater- nity at Rose-Hulman for a long, long time! Respectfully submitted, - Rob Banerjee, '78 Board of Trustees Update, Spring 2025 Dr. Bill Weiner Faculty Advisor Rob Banerjee '78 Chairman Rick Stanley '78 Vice-Chairman Mike Bandy '77 Financial Advisor Kenny McCleary '83 Secretary Jerry Matthews '77 Member Rex Phillips '83 Member Bill Daugherty '87 Member Dave Clauss '88 Member Nathan Wright '88 Member Ed Ransom '99 Member Matt Wentz '03 Member Nick Birch '14 Member Mike Riley '19 Member 2025 Board of Trustees Chairman, Gamma Gamma Board of Trustees 10

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