Sigma Phi Epsilon awards community service fellowship

NY Phi (Columbia) has Instituted a "Balanced Man Fellowship", which is centered on Community service and can be awarded to individuals or groups.

Sigma Phi Epsilon awards community service fellowship:

Josh Fram, CC '16, plans to use the fellowship to purchase indoor rowing machines for Camp Shriver, a camp for mentally disabled athletes, located in his hometown.

By Avantika Kumar

Spectator Senior Staff Writer

Published February 25, 2013

A SOUND CORE | Will Krasnoff, CC '14 and the fellowship chair, said that SigEp hopes to continue awarding the fellowship annually.

Tianyue Sun / Staff Photographer

Thanks to Sigma Phi Epsilon’s first Balanced Man Fellowship, Josh Fram, CC ’16, has the opportunity to bring to life an idea he’s worked on for years.

Fram, who received the fraternity’s $3,500 award on Friday, plans to use the fellowship to purchase indoor rowing machines for Camp Shriver, a camp for mentally disabled athletes, located in his hometown of Lawrenceville, NJ.

Fram, who is not in a fraternity, said that the project’s focus on a sport that required both mental and physical exertion reflected the “sound mind and sound body” principles at the core of the fellowship.

“Bringing together these two aspects in the Special Olympics athletes embodies exactly what this fellowship is trying to promote,” Fram said during his speech, which received a standing ovation.

Fram has volunteered at Camp Shriver for five of the past six summers. He has discussed the creation of an indoor rowing program for Special Olympians with the camp’s director of sports development, Matt Wiley, but needed the funds to make it happen.

According to Brian Marcus, CC ’12 and former scholarship chair of SigEp, the Balanced Man Fellowship reflects a focus on the hidden experience of the fraternity—the challenges to maturity and personal growth it offers.

This year is the first that SigEp has offered the Balanced Man Fellowship. In past years, the chapter offered a Balanced Man Scholarship of a smaller amount of money to honor individual achievement. The Fellowship—which can be awarded to individuals or groups and is specifically centered on a community service project—is a new initiative.

Andrew Chapman, CC ’15 and vice president of programming for SigEp, said the fellowship received approximately 10 applications.

From there, the pool was narrowed down to Fram and the runner-up, Engineers without Borders, a group whose project involved building water treatment systems in Ghana.

Will Krasnoff, CC ’14 and fellowship chair, said that the award, which is funded by alumni donations, represents an opportunity to make a deeper impact and show that Greek life is not as insular as some people think.

Marcus said that getting the fellowship off the ground had been a challenge. In his time at Columbia, the chapter struggled to start up the fellowship, as the chapter “didn’t have the core group of guys that they do now.”

“The chapter wasn’t ready,” he added.

William Parish, CC ’15 and a brother of SigEp, said the fellowship reflects the reality that Greek life is more than just partying.

Krasnoff also said the chapter plans to continue this fellowship in future years.

“Our goal is to make this an annual fellowship,” Krasnoff said.

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BU SigEp Food Truck Fundraiser

Week long fundraiser - Boston University SigEp partners with 5 different food trucks to bring a unique event to campus: http://bit.ly/sigepfoodtrucks




From the Facebook page:

The Balanced Man Scholarship is a program run by the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at Boston University and intended for ALL STUDENTS, NOT JUST GREEKS. The scholarship strives to recognize outstanding students who exemplify our philosophy by living balanced lives and striving for excellence in every endeavor amidst the very challenging college academic environment. The program includes $1000 and $500 awards given to incoming freshman based on academic and extracurricular merits. This is a program that exists in SigEp chapters across the nation, and we would like to make this scholarship available to BU students.

Starting the Year Off... Wrong!!

Fortunately neither of these involves SigEp directly, though there is a connection with the first incident:

Just this past weekend, a Purdue freshman fell to his death in an alcohol related incident.

BY ALLIE GOODRICH | Assistant Features Editor
A Purdue freshman died early Monday morning in Indianapolis after falling off of a fifth-floor balcony.
18-year-old Xavier Somerville, a Lawrence Central High School graduate, was a freshman in the undergraduate studies program.
According to a case report from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police, Somerville was at The Avenue Apartments near IUPUI's campus early Monday morning when police arrived, responding to a noise complaint. Witnesses said there had been drinking in the apartment, and Somerville got scared when police showed up. He was trying to swing from the fifth floor balcony to the fourth floor, when he lost his grip and fell. He was taken to Wishard Hospital, but died from his injuries.
The news came as a shock to one particular group of students on campus. It was just a couple weeks ago that Somerville accepted a bid from Sigma Chi fraternity. Chapter president Mark Back said while brothers are mourning this loss, their main focus is supporting Somerville's friends and family.
"He was a guy who stood out to me as someone who would have been a great Sigma Chi," Back said. "Our main thing is we want to be there for support. We can't imagine what his parents and his family's going through right now."

According to Mike Ellis, a SigEp AVC member at Purdue:

This boy was a scholarship winner last weekend from SigEp's BMS.  His accident didn't happen at his selected Sigma Chi fraternity, nor thankfully at SigEp.  But it goes to show how young men can (esp 18-22 yrs old) can make such poor choices at times, especially when they are influenced by alcohol.

This is just another reminder of how tragic such poor judgement can be.

...And in another story from last week, another alcohol related death, this time at Theta Chi at Fresno State: