Sigma Chi - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2 The DELTA PSI SIG L ast August, you elected Ken Miller '80, Jim Campbell '70 and me (John Pfaff '71) to two-year terms on the Phi Epsilon Phi House Corporation. At our next official meeting, I was elected by the board as president, replacing Bill Wurst '71, who had ably led us as president for the previous nine years. We all owe Bill an enormous debt of gratitude. Ten years ago, Bill recognized how far the chapter had fallen. Because of his efforts and the other alumni he recruited, the Delta Psi Chapter has rebuilt itself with a $2.8 million fraternity house, has won five Peterson Significant Chapter Awards, and is an RPI designated five-star fraternity. An amazing set of accomplishments in such a short time. Kudos Bill, from us all! As you can imagine, Bill remains involved and is a great resource for the board and myself. Over the course of the last year, Dan Zuber '10 has been our very able secretary. Anu Srivastava '07 has bought a house and has had to resign from the board due to personal and business time constraints. Luckily, Thom Kouletsis '76 has previous financial experience in volunteer nonprofit organizations and stepped in and is doing a great job. According to our bylaws, Thom Kouletsis '76, Dan Zuber '10, Bob Bedard '75, and Jim Rosetti '79 are up for reelection to the board at our annual meeting on August 21. I fully endorse their reelection and ask that each of you fill out the proxy form on page 6 and either mail it to Phi Epsilon Phi, P.O. Box 494, Averill Park, NY 12018, or e-mail it to dzuber321@gmail.com. Please be diligent about this, as we need about 90 votes—proxy or present—to have a quorum for the annual meeting. The house corporation functions mainly as the landlord for the house. As such, we believe our primary duty is to try to keep the house as close as we can to "as new" condition. Over the past year, we have contracted with Fiacco Brothers' Flooring to refinish the first-floor common areas during the summer, as we did the prior year. After a review with Tom Fiacco, we decided to do the front stairs and second-floor hallway every other year. Overall, Tom said that the wear and tear was very reasonable for a fraternity of 40-plus college students. Other contracts we have include a lawn mowing service, a lawn sprinkler service, a snow plowing service, a fire alarm monitoring service, a semi annual kitchen hood cleaning and inspection, annual fire alarm inspection, and annual internal sprinkler system inspection. In addition to these safety inspections (required by our insurance policies), RPI does an independent yearly inspection, which is part of our five-star competition. This summer, we are replacing the temporary inexpensive roller shades in the bedrooms with commercial grade shades. We also bought towel bars for every bedroom, which we will install during our pre semester work party August 21-23. Overall, our mechanical systems, water, HVAC, etc. have all been performing well and we keep a close eye on things like filter replacements (every 90 days). We perform physical inspections of every room at the beginning, middle, and end of each semester to document the room condition and deduct any charges deemed necessary from each brother's security deposit. With this type of diligence, we feel confident our new house will stay in great condition for years to come. If anyone has any questions or suggestions about our role or other maintenance suggestions, contact me at johnpfaff3@gmail.com or any of the other board members. In Hoc, John Pfaff '71 / johnpfaff3@gmail.com Phi Epsilon Phi Corporation President House Corporation Keeps Pomeroy Chapter House in New Condition Renovations to Chapter House Begin in Summer, Continue throughout the Year T he Pinewoods Educational Foundation has been ramping up its educational activities. The Foundation awarded scholarships to undergraduate brothers of Delta Psi from the Arch Love Endowment, and awarded the Pinewoods Scholarship Trophy, along with $1,000, to the RPI chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa for having the highest Greek GPA. Phi Sigma Kappa elected to spend $500 on a printer and a video projector that connects to a laptop for presentations and give a $500 scholarship payment to the brother who achieves the highest GPA for fall 2015 semester. Three newly initiated brothers, Sam Doskicil '17, Ravi Panse '16, and Matt Heimlich '17, were awarded the Eckart Scholarship of $500 each. All three posted perfect 4.0s for the semester. Congratulations to all of you! The foundation delivered two professional development seminars at the chapter house during the spring semester that were open to the student body. The first was a course on hypothesis-based management decision making, and the second was a course with role play workshops on presentation skills. These are just the beginning of a series of planned seminars intended to go beyond the rich academic content provided by RPI and extend that to life and career skills. These programs are an integral part of the reason for the foundation and are examples of the types of activities we must conduct as a tax-exempt charitable organization. For the 2016 academic year, we are planning to do more collaboration with new leadership programs to be sponsored by RPI to get more leverage and broader attendance across campus. Some of the programs on tap for fall include a talk by Courtney Banghart, Princeton women's basketball coach and daughter of James Munger Banghart '69, who will speak about leadership. We will also conduct sessions on interview skills and financial management for young adults. For the spring semester, seminars will include a discussion of career options that undergraduates may not have considered yet. The foundation remains in solid financial condition. We will remain in GOOD condition only if brothers who have outstanding pledges continue to HONOR their payment obligations against those pledges, enabling us pay off our construction bridge loan and fund the endowment for scholarships and the seminar programs. Please remember your obligations. Finally, we are always in need of volunteers to assist with the development and delivery of the seminars for our undergraduates. These seminars have proven to be fun ways to connect with our brothers while we are providing valuable life skills. Please consider volunteering to assist in facilitating a session or help with content. Contact anyone on the foundation to get connected. In Hoc, Jim Manocchi '75 Pinewoods Educational Foundation President jmanocchi@deloitte.com Pinewoods Educational Foundation Update Professional Development Seminars to Return in the Fall

• Cover