Rho Phi Chapter at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology - Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity 2013 Summer Edition H o u s e B a t h ro o m a n d E l e c t r i c a l P ro j e c t Dates to Remember: Beginning last summer the House Corporation began to reinvest in the house with the project of installing new windows, while still keeping the authentic look of  September 5: Classes Resume the house. This year the Red and Blue Room bathroom is getting a well-deserved overhaul. This project was  September 21: Homecoming precipitated when a drain pipe was punctured. Before a small leak in the bathroom had plagued the brothers for years, but when this pipe was punctured trying to unclog it, causing a massive leak and shutting down the bathroom for the year.  October 2: Fall Career Fair  October 4 & 5: Fiji Football Run  December 14: Pledge Retreat  May 10: Pig Dinner and Rho Phi Open Above is the pipe which started the project for the demo and remodel of the Red and Blue room bathroom. Below are some pictures of the other projects at the house. Other projects this summer include bringing the wiring in the house up to code, replacing the carpets, and painting upstairs. Currently the house’s electricity is being run with 90 year old knob and tube wiring. This wiring on the main and second floors will be completely replaced, each room will run on their own circuit, and more outlets will be added to handle the growing demand for access to electricity. The 5-Man is also being gutted and redone after bed bugs were found this past year. All projects should be completed when the brothers return in this fall. In this issue: House Bathroom Remodel 1 RHO PHI GRADES RISE AGAIN; 3.20 HIGHEST ON RECORD? 1 Track and Field Season 2 Recap The Rho Phi’s New Online Home 2 Rho Phi Grades Rise Again; 3.20 Highest On Record? Coming Soon: Fiji Football Run 4 Submitted by Tim Harlan Graduate Relations 5 Neighborhood Cleanup Raises $500 5 It’s difficult to trump an ace; in fact, it’s rarely done. However this spring, the Rho Phi chapter reached an amazing summit by posting a 3.20 for the Spring Quarter, highest among all the fraternities on campus and—a first, we believe--higher than the three sororities as well. As reported in the Spring 2013 Rose Fiji, we went from 3.02 in the fall to a 3.16 (also ranking us #1 among fraternities) in the winter to our current 3.20 GPA. As reported earlier, it is all-too-rare to set a goal and actually achieve it, but Rho Phi has done just that this year with scholarship. There are many reasons for the jump, but the main ones include a huge push from the old cabinet and as well as the current cabinet, a very high-achieving fall pledge class, and excellent mentoring/academic assistance from upperclassmen. (Continued on page 2) \r\nRose Fiji 2 Grades Continued... Perhaps the most important addition implemented by the Scholarship Committee has been the huge emphasis put on final exams. Again on the Sunday before final exam week, newly-appointed Scholarship Chairman, Casey Elliot (2014) reserved Olin 267 and secured several upperclass tutors to work with our freshmen to prepare them for their exams. We had excellent attendance—over 50 brothers—who stayed from noon until nearly dinner time. I was happy to provide juice, milk, fresh fruit and donuts to the cause. It was heartening to see that a few seniors (who of course had no finals to study for!) showed up to help. Who knows if we can keep going up—a 3.20 is pretty high!—but I believe the seed has been planted to achieve the very best grades possible. The chapter is extremely involved on campus—many varsity athletes, 2 SAs and an RA, ROTC members, the Rose Thorn, and other clubs and honoraries PLUS Phi Gamma Delta membership—so to achieve our current GPA given our huge presence on campus shows excellent time-management skills as well as the ability to juggle well! We lost an excellent senior class who contributed mightily to our scholarship excellence, however we are blessed with an amazing group of freshmen who realize the value of a strong GPA. We definitely need to scan in files left from fall and this spring, and the complete scholarship committee needs to finish planning for the 2013-14 school year. Everyone is filled with pride for our Brandon Bullitt (2016), Joseph Woodley (2016), Jacob Dye (2016), and Aaron Abbott (2016) studying for their finals. current accomplishment. The heat is now on our Rush Committee to bring in another strong group of pledge brothers to continue our excellence in scholarship! Oh—we were all wondering: is this the highest quarter GPA that Rho Phi has achieved ever? We have records for 15 years, and it the highest among those. If any brother has information to add to this article, please contact the chapter and let us know! We are ALL, as always, mighty proud to be Rho Phi Fijis! Tim Harlan, Purple Legionnaire Chapter President Ryan Landwher (2014) helps Chris Grable (2016) study for spring quarter finals. The Rho Phi’s New Online Home Submitted By Tyler Rockwood One goal of the new cabinet was to update the rosefiji.com site that has become outdated. Corbin Oliver, in the spring began a new website from scratch. Corey Vatter, our Technology Chairman, and I soon volunteered to help him build and design this new site. While work was slow at first, in the time that has passed since finals we have made a great deal of progress. brother and officer for the Rho Phi. Also, if one of these pictures is clicked on, it brings up a biography page for every brother, which includes their hometown, major, class, and a short description of their honors, awards and activities both inside and outside the fraternity. The new Rush page has a short explanation of what it means to be a Fiji, and also has a “brag sheet” – a list of our chapter’s accomplishments and some of Collectively, we worked on bringing over the content from the old website. We brought over resources like Fiji Files, access to Rosefiji email accounts, Committee Files and Fiji Finder. Corbin, as the chapter Historian, has been hard at work bringing over and updating the chapter’s history. The thousands of pictures that were on the old site have been transferred over and the chapter’s history is in process of being transferred and updated. the awards the individual brothers have won. The content from We added a few new features and completely recreated pages, such as the Rush and Graduate pages. One of the new features added to the site is the Brothers page – a page shows the composite picture of every undergraduate The Graduates page is our next project as we have a lot of features we www.fijifootballrun.com has been imported and can now be found at http:// rosefiji.com/fiji-football-run or under the Philanthropy page. The Philanthropy page will soon the contain links to the other service events that the men of Rho Phi partake in. (Continued on page 3) \r\nRose Fiji 3 New Online Home Continued... would like to add to make the website more open to our graduate brothers. Currently we have pictures and dates on the website that we would love to We hope you check out our new home at www.rosefiji.com soon. If you have any questions or comments about the website either go to the contact see our Graduates visit on. We hope to add more features, like a Graduate Brother of the Month and Brothers Helping Brothers. The Brothers Helping Brothers feature would contain a list of every undergraduate brother’s re- us section of the website or send an email to web@rosefiji.com. sume, a place where graduate brothers could look by major or age for brothers that as they look for jobs or internships. That way we can help each other by our undergraduate brothers get work, and our graduate brothers would then know they are getting a quality man who lives by the five values. Follow the chapter on Twitter at @rosefiji or visit the the chapter website at rosefiji.com Rose-Hulman Wins Sixth Straight HCAC Title Submitted By Andrew Thompson Over the course of the 2013 outdoor track and field season, the Fightin’ Engineers continued their tradition of success. Winning the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship by a significant margin, amassing an impressive 202 points to outscore second place Franklin College that scored 142. The Engineers were led by strong performances from many members of the Rho Phi chapter. Senior Trey Cahill, who later qualified for nationals in his event, placed second in the hammer throw with a distance of 170’ 10”. Also in the field events, Junior Andy Hunkeler placed third, fifth, and seventh in the shot put, discus, and hammer throw respectively. He had marks of 46’ 2” in the shot, 132’ 7” in the discus and 149’ 2” in the hammer. Sophomore Blake Shulthies also added a fourth place in the javelin throw with a mark of 151’ 6”. In the distance events, Sophomore Ryan Meyer placed third in the 3000 meter steeplechase, setting a personal best by close to 20 seconds in the process, running a 9:53.70. Meyer also added an eighth place finish in the 5000 meters, finishing in 16:14.52. Junior Andrew Thompson placed fourth and sixth in the 1500 and 5000 meters respectively. He finished in 4:08.57 and 16:02.06 in each of those events. Freshman Addison Williams had a strong performance in the 10000 meters however he placed just outside the points and running a 34:14.02. The sprint crew also placed well with Freshman Tyler Rockwood placing sixth in the 110 meter high hurdles in a 16.24, and Shulthies placing in the 400 meters by running 50.34. Members of the Rho Phi chapter contributed 41 points to the team total, continuing the tradition of FIJI being an important part of Rose-Hulman Track and Field. Looking forward to next year, many of the men listed above will seek to win Rose-Hulman’s first HCAC title in Cross Country, while others will continue FIJI’s proud football tradition. \r\nRose Fiji 4 Coming Soon: Fiji Football Run 2013 Beginning in 2010, brothers from Rho Phi and the Tau Chapter at Hanover College began working on a philanthropy event known as the Fiji Football Run. These brothers were hoping to build a tradition, and this year, October 4th and 5th, marks the fourth annual Football Run. Brothers have spent quite some time this year to reinvigorate the event and get the chapter excited for our largest philanthropy event. with the Football Run. Content that used to be on the fijifootballrun.com website is now located at http://rosefiji.com/fiji-football-run. You can access the page by either typing in the address or under the Philanthropy page by clicking the Football Run logo. If you are a twitter user then follow us at @FijiFootballRun. Visit the Chapter website for more information! This year the football will be run from Hanover College to Rose over 24 hours and 150 miles by brothers from both chapters. Hanover will start the run from their chapter house where the ball will be handed off at Indiana University’s Zeta Chapter to the men of Rho Phi. The run will conclude at RoseHulman’s Cook Stadium. Brothers will run in shifts in groups of two or more to cover the 150 miles. They will also be accompanied by a police vehicle and a representative from the Red Cross. Last year the Fiji Football Run raised $5,000 and this year the men of Rho Phi are hoping to reach a goal of $25,000 for the Red Cross. We are calling upon each graduate and parent to help us reach this goal by donating $25 (or more). There are many ways to follow what is happening Follow us on Twitter at @FijiFootballRun A map of the 150 mile route brothers from the Tau and Rho Phi Chapters will running. Attention Graduates and Parents! Donating to the Fiji Football Run is easy! You can donate by submitting this form with a check by mail or online with PayPal. To donate by PayPal visit the chapter website, www.rosefiji.com, and under the philanthropy tab you can find a link to the Football Run information page. Thank you for your support! General Donation Form Name of Donor: ____________________________________________ Donation Amount: _________________________ Name of Brother You Are Supporting: ____________________________ Please make checks payable to: Fiji Charity Account Mail check and form to: Phi Gamma Delta PO Box 3047 Terre Haute, IN 47803 Visit us at http://rosefiji.com/fiji-football-run to donate online Donations to Fiji Charity Account are not tax deductible. If you wish to make your donation tax deductible, make your check payable to the American Red Cross \r\nRose Fiji 5 Save The Date! Homecoming 2013 VS. Rose-Hulman Defiance College September 20- 21, 2013 For more information visit www.rose-hulman.edu/homecoming \r\nRose Fiji v n Co Ou n 00 & = oO U oO = oO a n ’ Fiji \r\nRose Fiji 7 Graduate Relations Dinner Attendees Carl Edward Bradway Chad Stephen Buckles Robert Maxwell Bunch Gerry Joseph Dail P.E. Ralph Edwin Fain Thomas Paul Frank James Henry Graham Timothy S. Harlan Austin Matthew Hastings Jeffery Allen Hearn Brent Leon Hendrix Andrew Edward Horton This year marks a very special mile stone for the Rho Phi chapter as it is the 45th anniversary of the chapters founding. In May, a dinner was held at the Seasons 52 restaurant to spur graduate involvement in the chapter. Hosted by the House Corporation, 30 brothers, both graduate and current chapter officers, attended the event. Its purpose was to not only get grads and undergrads in the Indianapolis area together, but also inform everyone about the upcoming chapter projects. There was also talk of the chapters current successes such as the 40 man pledge class and academic achievements. We are hoping to have more events like this in the for future. Matthew Dewane Jackson Jeremy Michael Kashman Jason Saunders Lanie Matthew W. LeVora Stephen Thomas Parker Kenneth Kurtis Preston Nathan Philip Richter Brian Allen Telljohann Ryan William Thompson Joseph Allen Weist Cecil Lee Whitaker Matthew Lee Whitaker Ryan Landwher, chapter president Bill Miller Tyler Rockwood, recording secretary Ryan Meyer, corresponding secretary Corbin Oliver, historian Brian Soller, Treasurer Ne i ghb o rh oo d Cl e anup R ai se s $50 0 This year the men of Phi Gamma Delta participated in the annual Neighborhood Cleanup in the Farrington Grove Neighborhood. For over two decades, the men of the fraternity have volunteered a Saturday in the spring to help improve the area around the fraternity house. For the cleanup, brothers volunteer their time and effort to perform manual labor job in exchange for donations to the Red Cross. This year brothers in the fraternity served 19 different families in the neighborhood, as well as a family in Paris, Illinois. Brothers performed jobs ranging from hauling away storm debris to cleaning up local gardens. The people helped by the fraternity’s efforts ranged from families within the neighborhood to a retired veteran who had a tree fall on his house. After Cleanup the fraternity raised around $500 for the Red Cross. Andrew Schuelke (2016) and Jeff Ludwig (2016) help unload during Cleanup \r\nRho Phi Chapter Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity PO Box 3047 Terre Haute, IN 47803 Mailing Address Line 1 Mailing Address Line 2 Mailing Address Line 3 Mailing Address Line 4 Mailing Address Line 5 NOT FOR COLLEGE DAYS ALONE Find us Online! rosefjij.com Information Update — Tell us about you! Please detach and return with your contact information so we can update our records. We will feature graduate updates in upcoming newsletters. If you want to share your recent news, fill in the news section or email RMeyer@rosefiji.com for your information to be published. Name: _____________________________________________________________ School/year: ______________________________ Address: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ City / State / Zip: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone: Home :_______________________ Work: ________________________ Cell: ___________________________ Email: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ News to share: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Occupation:____________________________________________ Employer:_______________________________________________ CONTRIBUTE TO THE RHO PHI CHAPTER I am pleased to make a contribution to Rho Phi of: $1000 $500 $250 $100 $50 $25 Other: $______________ I would like my donation to be used in the following area:____________________________________________________________________________. Donations can be made online at www.phigam.org/netcommunity/rosedonations or send checks payable to PhiGamma Delta—Rho Phi Chapter/RoseHulman Donations, PO Box 4599, Lexington, KY 40544 and include this form