Alpha Upsilon News In This Issue: Introducing the Cabinet State of the Chapter 2 Awards 2 Pig Dinner 2 Brotherhood Events 3 Philanthropy 3 Recruitment 3 College GameDay at Auburn 4 Alumni Update 4 Introducing the Cabinet Ben Conry (2019): President, Vestavia Hills, AL, civil engineering, rbc0020@auburn.edu “During my time as President, I would like to further improve graduate brother relations. We plan to begin major house improvements/renovations in the spring or fall of 2018, so over the next year, I plan to begin a major fundraising drive. In addition, I want to continue to push each of the Chapter’s brothers to perform to the best of his abilities in his classes. Finally, I plan to continue to instill a respect for the FIJI house and all it stands for in every brother and in the surrounding Auburn community.” Bentley King (2019): Treasurer, Birmingham, AL, accounting, bdk0014@auburn.edu “As Treasurer, my main goal is to help make sure this fraternity runs smoothly. Financially, I want to focus on eliminating the amount of uncollected dues the Chapter has, as well as being trustworthy and smart with the Chapter’s resources. Overall, I want to help this Chapter in any way that I can through my position on cabinet.” New Cabinet from (L-R): Bentley King, Treasurer; Taylor Lummis, Historian; Ben Conry, President; Jack Hutcheson, Corresponding Secretary; Joe Bersson, Recording Secretary. Joe Bersson (2019): Recording Secretary, Roswell, GA, civil engineering, jwb0056@auburn.edu “As Recording Secretary, I am in a role that allows me to facilitate an open dialogue between the Chapter, cabinet and advisors. My goals for this term are to improve communication in order to improve relations within and outside of our chapter. I hope to assist the cabinet in maintaining our chapter’s standing as one of the best fraternities on campus.” Jack Hutcheson (2019): Corresponding Secretary, Hoover, AL, finance, jph0037@auburn.edu “I’m going to try to improve graduate relationships so every brother will want to come back to the Chapter and will be proud of what we have done with the Chapter. Also, I’m going to work hard to reach out to graduate brothers regarding fundraising, as we are trying to make house improvements. Finally, I want to increase attendance at our annual Pig Dinner.” Taylor Lummis (2019): Historian, Birmingham, AL, accounting, thl0005@auburn.edu “As Historian, I plan to emphasize the importance of our chapter’s history and traditions. I hope to create a sense of accountability among the members of our chapter so that we can take pride in knowing what it truly means to be a Fiji.” Turner Huddleston (2019): Recruitment Chairman, Opelika, AL, pharmacy, wth0019@auburn.edu “As rush chair I plan to get a good group of men that will have the values FIJI is so well known for and continue to represent the Fraternity well. If you ever need to contact me about anything pertaining to this year’s recruitment please feel free to send me an email.” \r\n2 State of the Chapter The Alpha Upsilon Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta is rounding out another excellent year on Auburn’s campus. With over 200 members, we have managed to continually improve in all areas of Greek and student life. The Alpha Upsilon Chapter achieved a 3.39 GPA for the prior semester—an improvement from last fall—and donated nearly $40,000 toward philanthropy over the calendar year. We also remain highly involved on and off campus. The Chapter achieved over 3,000 hours of community service and has members involved in nearly every major organization on campus. With the new pledge class of 55 members, we will continue to improve and grow our outreach in the coming years. This year also marks the end of a historic run for our kitchen manager, Luther Ford, who has been a part of this chapter for nearly 30 years. 2017 was a great year for Alpha Upsilon, and we look forward to carrying this success into the new year and beyond. Perge! William Cole (2018) Former Chapter President Awards This year, the Alpha Upsilon Chapter is proud to announce that we have been awarded the Academics Award by the Interfraternity Council (IFC) at Auburn University for 2017. Scholarship and academic excellence are highly encouraged in the Chapter on a daily basis. This year’s Academic chair, Fletcher Fair (2019), has put together an extensive list of fraternity brothers willing to donate their time to tutor anyone in the Chapter who needs help academically. With the collective help of every brother in the Chapter, we hope to continue the academic excellence into 2018. Pig Dinner Academic Award of 2017 presented to President Ben Conry (2019) and former President William Cole (2018). The Alpha Upsilon Chapter lives out Phi Gamma Delta’s motto “Not for College Days Alone” by hosting the annual Norris Pig Dinner. This year’s Pig Dinner Chair, Patrick Cumpton (2019), has set the date for Pig Dinner to be on April 7. This is the same weekend as the Auburn Football A-day game, which will hopefully give more graduate brothers the opportunity to come to Pig Dinner if they are in town for the football game. We would love to have as many graduate brothers as possible at the event to honor the tradition this year. If you have any questions about this year’s Pig Dinner, feel free to email Patrick Cumpton at pmc0012@auburn.edu. \r\n3 Brotherhood Events This past fall, former Social Chairs Ben Conry (2019) and Drew Wright (2019), did an excellent job at planning a host of brotherhood events that included a semi-formal on a riverboat in Montgomery, our Halloween Date Party, Christmas Cocktail and a Parents’ Weekend Date Party. The newly elected Social Chairs, Rix Curtis (2020) and Parker Hershey (2020), have already put together an impressive schedule of brotherhood events for the spring, which include a formal in New Orleans, the Phi Gam Lounge and Fiji Island, on April 12-14. We look forward to another great semester socially led by Rix and Parker. Former President William Cole (2018) with his parents at Parents’ Weekend. Tucker Brown (2018) at this year’s Halloween date party. Christmas Cocktail from left to right: William Alderman (2018), Peyton Cox (2018), Bram Duke (2018), and Logan Bailey (2018). Philanthropy One of the values that we pride ourselves on as a chapter is our call to service. We have decided to support Auburn-Opelika Young Life as our philanthropy this year. Young Life is a non-profit organization that mentors high schoolers spiritually and emotionally. Together, we have raised over $32,000 to support this great organization. In addition, a few of our brothers have become Young Life leaders to work with these kids on a daily basis. Last April, we hosted our annual Phi Gam Open, benefiting Auburn-Opelika Young Life. Also, our Philanthropy Chairman Stewie Austin (2019) has worked very hard to bring back our annual Peachtree Basketball Tournament. He has many more ideas planned for the future to raise as much money possible to benefit the surrounding community. To learn more about Auburn-Opelika Young Life or to donate to this organization, visit www.auburnopelika.younglife.org. For more information on our fraternity’s involvement and Young Life, contact Stewie Austin at sta0011@auburn.edu. Recruitment Phi Gamma Delta at Auburn prides itself on recruiting new members that represent the Fraternity’s five core values: friendship, knowledge, service, morality and excellence. The same can be said for the 55 new members FIJI welcomed as part of its 2017 fall pledge class, under the leadership of Pledge Educator Daniel Henderson (2018): “Our new members were taught the values and history of the Fraternity during their eight-week pledgeship program. I feel confident that this group of young men is a great addition to Phi Gamma Delta at Auburn University and will continue to add to our great legacy, both inside and outside the classroom.” \r\n4 College GameDay at Auburn The Iron Bowl this year was College GameDay on ESPN. Since the football game took place the weekend after Thanksgiving, the ESPN College GameDay crew needed a place to celebrate their Thanksgiving dinner. They decided to hire a chef and celebrate Thanksgiving with us at the FIJI house. It was an honor getting to meet the crew that makes GameDay such a great production every Saturday during football season. Alumni Spotlight The Alpha Upsilon Chapter is honored to recognize David Walker (1992), who recently waspromoted to Chief Executive Officer of EBSCO Industries. David attended Auburn from 1988-1992 and pledged with the Chapter as a sophomore. Not only was he very involved with the fraternity by acting as rush chair, he also was very active in the University by participating in Beta Alpha Psi, intramural sports and coaching little league baseball. He graduated from Auburn with an accounting degree, which led him to a career in public accounting with Ernst & Young in Birmingham. He worked there for five years before he had the opportunity to join EBSCO. EBSCO is a family-owned mini-conglomerate founded by Elton B. Stephens in the early 1940s. Mr. Stephens was from Clio, Alabama and began the business by selling magazines door-to-door as a way to pay for his tuition at Birmingham Southern. From there, and over a number of decades of successful business endeavors, EBSCO diversified into numerous industries. Today, they operate in 15 different lines of business with the largest business being an information services provider of journals, books, information databases and software and discovery tools to academic libraries. When it comes to his job, David says, “The highlight of my job is the daily effort to add value to our company by creating momentum in our people, our businesses and our profits. This begins with people – we must identify and source, recruit, hire, develop and retain the best teams in each of our businesses. With the best teams, we are able to overcome challenges and we are able to build our businesses by embracing a growth mindset in which we set stretch goals that reach beyond incremental improvements and focus on larger, aspirational goals.” David has a son, John David (2019), who is currently an active member in the Alpha Upsilon Chapter. David has realized that the most important job that every brother has, active or graduate, is to ensure the continuity of greatness that has defined FIJI at Auburn for decades. He has enjoyed seeing this great legacy continue from his days at Auburn to John David’s today. David Walker is a great example of the type of man the active members of the Alpha Upsilon Chapter should strive to be like.