View the Spring 2008 Alumni Newsletter

Pledge Education

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.

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.

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. 

Annual Alumni LAE Phonathon April 20-22, 2008

We've completed the calls and have starting collecting the Money.  So far we have received $15,440 out of the $22,550 pledged.  We feel we will easily surpass our goal of $20,000.  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

View the Fall 2007 Alumni Newsletter

Recruitment
                This Fall Rush was an extremely successful turnout for new fall pledges. We approached Rush with an entirely different attitude and chose not to follow the old standards of rush. The biggest change was made to the schedule as we delayed our bid dinner by one week and had two inductions the following two weeks; this effectively gave rush a more relaxed and less pressured atmosphere. In addition, it gave us more time to get know potential members and gave them more time to make a confident decision. With this new plan in effect, we were able to have 21 rushees sign during bid dinner; 2 more signed in the first induction. At the second induction, 3 more signed. With such a large class, 26, this fall we may choose to only have one pledge class this school year which would enable the brotherhood to be much more productive in late spring. All in all, the house did an extraordinary job recruiting this fall and we are all excited for the new pledges.

Alumni/Parents Weekend         
Alumni and Parents weekend proved to be a great time for both alumni and parents. We hosted a parent’s dinner on that Saturday which had high attendance in both alumni and parents. The majority of parents in attendance were the parents of the new pledges.

Breast Cancer
                We had high participation on campus for the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We were involved in raising awareness by selling cupcakes in the Union. In addition, we bought 25 pink t-shirts which were worn by brothers on the “Paint the campus pink” day. On the t-shirts was the phrase “Save second base, strike out breast cancer”

Alcohol Awareness
                Without any external motivation by campus or otherwise, we organized ourselves to hand out alcohol awareness cards. The size of a business card, the cards had information on how to detect alcohol poisoning and what do to in the event that it happens.

Banister
                The banister in the main house was reinforced all the way from the first floor to the third. The banister is now more solid and secure than any of the active brothers can remember.

Fire Alarm System
                A new fire alarm system was recently installed. The installation replaced the front panel, detectors, and pull stations. We have already had a successful fire drill with the new system.

Pledge Lip Sync
                The pledges competed in the annual RPI Lip Sync this year and placed first in the competition.  They chose to perform to a compilation of “Roses” by Outkast, “Chicken Noodle Soup” by DJ Webstar, and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

Regards,
Christopher Petrino
Rush Chair