THE BAYOU FIJI BETA RHO CHAPTER OF PHI GAMMA DELTA LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY SUMMER 2019 INTRODUCTION It has been several years since our chapter has produced a chapter newsletter, and as a cabinet, we decided that it was something we wanted to bring back. We feel that it is of the utmost importance that we create a strong relationship with our graduate brothers and we believe that this is a great way to keep everyone informed and aware of chapter events. TABLE OF CONTENTS With the fall semester right around the corner, we hope to increase alumni support, attendance and involvement for future events that we Frank Norris Pig Dinner.............................2 organize. Garrett Frey (2020) Corresponding Secretary MEET OUR CABINET TREASURER Philanthropy Updates..............................3 Songfest...............................................3 Grad Relations..........................................3 Alumni of the Year...................................4 Athletics....................................................4 Seniors.............................................4 Letter from the President........................5 Social Media..............................................5 Hello brothers, My name is Andres Amador and I am the Vice President/Treasurer of Beta Rho Fiji. I will be graduating May 2020 with a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering. After graduating, I plan on moving to Texas and pursuing a career in land development. Before this position, I served as house manager. Outside of Fiji, I serve as Vice President for the American Society of Civil Engineers student branch at LSU. I have also been involved in student government and TEDxLSU. Our cabinet is working on improving our finances, so we can elevate LSU Fiji to the organization it should be. Alumni relations have been underlooked for too long and restoring them is one of our top priorities. I am looking forward to the progress that will be made this year and the years to come. I strongly urge all alumni to make an attempt to attend Pig Dinner next spring. Information will be out soon. RECORDING SECRETARY Brothers, My name is Eric Beraud, and I am the Recording Secretary for the BP Chapter of FIJI at LSU. I was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana and will be graduating in May 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Decision Sciences with a minor in Analytics. I pride myself on maintaining above a 3.2 GPA as well as staying involved on campus in multiple organizations, such as the Future Business Leaders of America and the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Over the past semester, I believe our cabinet has accomplished a lot; we have raised our chapter GPA tremendously, increased our campus and community involvement, created a chapter website and have revived the graduate newsletter. I know that we have plenty more to accomplish this fall, and we hope that our graduate brothers support us in our efforts to ensure that Fiji remains the best chapter on LSU’s campus. \r\nCORRESPONDING SECRETARY Hello brothers; I am the Beta Rho Corresponding Secretary, Garrett Frey. This summer I have been interning in my hometown of New Orleans, but am excited to return to LSU for my senior year. I am pursuing a major in Civil Engineering, and will be returning for my fourth and final season of playing on the LSU Lacrosse team. I pledged Fiji as a sophomore, and immediately became more confident in myself, as well as more ambitious in all aspects of my life. My brothers have pushed me to work hard academically, while also pushing me to play my hardest on the field. In only my second year as part of the chapter, I decided that I had to run for a cabinet-level leadership position, so that I could have the chance to give back to the organization that had done so much for me. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that I have not only been given, but also worked hard for. In my remaining time on cabinet, I aim to greatly improve the relationship with our chapter’s graduate brothers. One of my major projects to enhance that relationship was this newsletter. It has been several years since our last one, and seemed like a great way to keep everyone in the loop about how our chapter is doing. HISTORIAN Brothers, My name is Johnny Crouere and I am the Beta Rho Fiji Historian. I pledged Fiji in the fall of 2016, and am part of the Xi pledge class. I am currently a senior at LSU, where I am pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering with plans to get a Master’s in Ecology. My time as the chapter Historian has allowed me to fully immerse myself the unique story of Phi Gamma Delta, which gave me a deeper appreciation for the history of our own Beta Rho Chapter. The role of Historian has enriched my experience as a Fiji because I have the privilege to teach the younger guys about what separates our fraternity from every other chapter on campus. I hope to leave a positive, permanent mark on the way LSU perceives our chapter and the great guys that are in it. I also vow to have a functioning grill in the courtyard at all times. PIG DINNER The 2019 Pig Dinner was a great success. This year, the event was held at The Chicory in downtown New Orleans. Afterwards, both grads and undergrads explored the Big Easy together and had a blast. We had over 40 undergraduate brothers and 25 alumni in attendance. As the organizer of the event, I can say that I was extremely proud of, and encouraged by, the support that I received while planning the event. However, it made me realize how many things need to be addressed and improved in order to make Pig Dinner the huge, memorable event that it is for many other Fiji chapters. On our end, we realized that we need to plan it much earlier. Planning Pig Dinner helped me to realize that in order to maximize attendance, especially from the graduate brothers, the date of the event must be decided several months before. Being college students, we often just take things one day at a time and can quickly forget how hard it can be for alumni to make last-minute plans. To all the graduate brothers, we ask that you guys consider coming to future Beta Rho Pig Dinners. While having just over 60 brothers was an amazing turnout compared to previous years, we all know that it could be a much bigger gathering. Pig Dinner information was a key reason that we decided to restart this newsletter, because we felt that efficient and established communication between the undergraduate and graduate brothers will improve attendance and planning. Again, we ask you all to strongly consider attending next year as we plan to host the biggest Pig Dinner our chapter has ever had. 2 \r\nPHILANTHROPY UPDATES Last fall, our chapter hosted our third annual “FIJI Lip-Sync”. Several teams from different sororities, and even some Fiji brothers, compete for the trophy. This year we held the event at Fred’s and had an awesome turnout. There were over ten sorority teams and three Fiji teams that competed in the Lip-Sync Battles. While the Fijis aren’t allowed to win, the soulful duet performed by the Beta Rho President and Corresponding Secretary was the show of a lifetime. This event alone raised over $5,000 for our charity, “Live 2 Serve.” Live 2 Serve is a Baton Rouge Ministry which provides programs, such as tutoring and after-school care for children in low-income areas. Our chapter has worked closely with them over the past year, and we hope to continue to help the program more for years to come. In addition to our philanthropy, all our brothers volunteer several hours with Live 2 Serve and other organizations to help and give back to the Baton Rouge community that we all love. This past spring semester we partnered with Delta Zeta to host a blood drive. It was a huge success and we had over one hundred donors. We look forward to hosting another drive next semester. SONGFEST AWARDS This year, Fiji teamed up with Delta Zeta in the annual dance competition, “Songfest.” It is an incredible event, and several notable LSU alumni and administrators are in attendance every year. Sororities and fraternities are nominated for several different awards that are decided by the PHC and IFC. We are proud to announce that we took home two major awards; Matthew Palmer (2022) won “IFC Outstanding New Member” and our House Mom, Gayle Ward, won “Outstanding Fraternity House Director.” Congratulations to both of them for representing our chapter well! GRADUATE RELATIONS This year we introduced a Graduate Relations committee to our chapter. Evan Olsen (2021) and Alek Zaeff (2021) were appointed as co-committee heads. The focus is to have a group specifically devoted to planning alumni events and projects. We hope to continue to see growth in this area. One of our first ideas as a cabinet and committee was to build a counter space in the corner of the main room right across from the front door. This addition would be an awesome centerpiece for the room and would serve as a gathering area for brothers. We would greatly appreciate any financial support to accomplish this project, and we plan to have the names of all alumni donors visible on it. The piece was designed by a graduate brother and would be built by him if we are able to raise the money. This is going to be the first thing people see when they walk into our house, as it shares the space with our pool table and beautiful back courtyard. We are very excited about it and our graduates are too. Special thanks to William E Cruikshank II and Thomas Williamson for being the first of hopefully many donors. If you would like to donate to this project and have your name on the bar, visit our website lsufiji.com. 3 \r\nALUMNI OF THE YEAR This year we are happy to honor Jeff Gahn (2015) as our Alumni of the Year. Jeff has done great things for our chapter in his relatively short time as a graduate brother. Most importantly, last year he served as our Purple Legionnaire and did an outstanding job. He was great to work with and helped make cabinet’s jobs a lot easier. After an excellent year, Jeff has decided to step down to prepare for his first child. Congratulations to Jeff for a great accomplishment! We would also like to introduce and congratulate Nick Nuccio for being selected as our new Purple Legionnaire for the upcoming year. This year is filled with potential and we believe that Nick is a great choice to take on the new role and keep us going in the right direction! ATHELTICS This last year, all of our Fiji intramural teams competed at the highest level. We excelled in sports such as flag football, basketball and softball. We also competed in several philanthropy tournaments. LSU’s Campus Ministry hosted a basketball tournament that a team of our members competed in, where we took home the first-place trophy, as well as $500 towards our philanthropy. We also competed in other events such as: Kappa Alpha Theta’s ultimate-frisbee tournament, Zeta Tau Alpha’s Dodgeball Tournament and Alpha Delta Pi’s 3v3 basketball tournament. Additionally, several of our members enjoyed successful seasons with different athletic teams at LSU. Congratulations to Brandon McQuen (2021) on a great season with the LSU football team. Our members Matthew Palmer (2022), Jack Gab (2021) and Patrick Gallagher (2022) enjoyed a solid season with the LSU rugby team. And lastly, congrats to Garrett Frey (2020) and Rob Hinyub (2020) for a monumental season with the lacrosse team. Both enjoyed starting positions for the Tigers, where they won their conference for the first time in 40 years, sending them to the national tournament. SENIORS This year we graduated a great group of seniors. Congratulations to Joseph Impastato, Andrew Amedee, Drake Pierce, David Hunt, Micheal Niedermair, Zach Anderson, Cade Bourgeois, Chandler Lemons, Matthew Cedro, Dale Miller, Daniel Bufkin, David Trepagnier and Paul Veazey for finishing their LSU careers and all four undergraduate years in our chapter. All of these men did great things on campus and within Beta Rho. The group together held leadership positions within our chapter. Among those include president, treasurer, recording secretary, corresponding secretary, historian, recruitment chair, pledge education, scholarship chair and many other roles. This was an amazing group of seniors and we are grateful to have such a large and influential group setting the example for our younger members. 4 \r\nLETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Brothers, My name is Dominic Berthelot, and I consider it a great honor and privilege to be writing to you as the current President of the Beta Rho Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta at Louisiana State University. I grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, where I attended the Episcopal School of Acadiana. I am entering my junior year as a Political Science major with a minor in Public Policy, and I plan to attend law school upon completion of my undergraduate degree. When I arrived on LSU’s campus two years ago, I could have never predicted the experiences, challenges and opportunities that I would encounter. Leaving my small high school, I had little context of what Greek Life was like, especially at an SEC powerhouse like LSU. The lack of understanding made me hesitant to go through recruitment, but I decided to go with my gut and apply. I can say now with total confidence that I made the right decision. From the night I received my bid, I have been fortunate enough to be around people who have bought into the Fiji fraternity experience. I jumped at the opportunities to be my pledge-class Historian, an IFC Delegate, a Pledge Educator and now Chapter President. I am proud to report that the Beta Rho Chapter currently has a competitive size of 96 men. We accepted the Rho pledge class of 36 new members last fall, and 6 men in the Sigma pledge class this past spring. I also want to address the intense criticism and scrutiny that LSU Greek Life has faced since the tragic hazing death of Max Gruver, someone I knew personally. Since his death, four chapters have been removed from campus due to hazing-related incidents. I want to emphasize to our graduate brothers that the Beta Rho Chapter is firmly committed to being a non-hazing fraternity at LSU, and we strive to be an example for other chapters. It saddens me that some parents and families of LSU students interested in a Greek experience are deeply afraid of “what could happen” to their child. If your brother, son, grandson, nephew or anyone you know accepts a bid from Fiji, his experience will be a positive and beneficial one. We fully believe that incoming students should never have to worry about their personal safety or well-being when considering a Greek Life experience. Since we assumed our cabinet positions last fall, all 5 of us have shared several common goals and priorities for our time in leadership, but one theme specifically seemed to be the foundation for all of our objectives: building a stronger relationship with our graduate brothers. We created a new committee titled “Graduate Relations,” which assists the Corresponding Secretary in all matters that include graduate contact and correspondence. This is intended to make communication more efficient and consistent from the undergraduate chapter. Any time undergraduates are able to gather and connect with our Beta Rho alums, we are reminded how much we are able to relate to their college experiences, regardless of the difference in years. Whether it is sharing stories about tailgates, looking at pictures from past Islander parties or just talking about how disgusting Gulch can get, those conversations confirm the brotherhood that Fiji is. We ask all of our graduate brothers to get more involved in the chapter. Speak at chapter meetings. Come to graduate tailgates. Join us at Pig Dinner. Make a donation to Beta Rho. As I enter the second half of my term as President, I am extremely proud of the improvements that we have made as a chapter since last fall, and I sincerely hope that these chapter newsletters provide a glimpse of what we are about at Beta Rho. FOLLOW US This year our chapter has taken great strides to improve our social media presence. Social media has become one of the best outlets to share accomplishments of our chapter, as well as connect with other Fiji chapters across North America. We utilize our platform to show followers all of the positive impacts that Greek Life can have in communities. It is a great way to show some of the reasons why our chapter is the best on campus! LSU FIJI @lsufiji_bp 5 www.lsufiji.com