Distance Mentoring at IL Epsilon SEC

The SigEp Technology Task Force has been developing the concept of bringing mentors to chapters even if they are far from the chapter or member they work with. 

In this example Mike Ellis is using a Google+ Hangout to meet with 4 others who are interested in helping an SEC achieve chartered status. You will notice two significant points that primarily support Mentoring and the learning and review that can result. 

1. All 5 participants are able to see each other.

2. The meeting was streamed live over YouTube and saved for later playback. (like now)

Take a look. We welcome comments or questions.

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Here's what's happening as an example of Distance Mentoring at the SigEp chapter trying to regain its charter (Northern Illinois University, Illinois Epsilon)

http://youtu.be/yOTBez1NcyU

You too could be part of a group helping undergraduates at a chapter somewhere in the country.

Eliminate the distance, make the time commitment manageable, make a real difference.  All that we need is one hour a week, one hour a month.

c: SigEp IL E Mentors

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Best. Rush. Video. Ever.

Thanks to Tennessee Eta for this video. It is perhaps the best encapsulation of what "Fraternity" means I have seen. No frenetic music. No quick cut photos or videos, but a simple message that will challenge and inspire anyone who sees it.


It is long - 8 minutes - but well worth the time. Not a SigEp? Watch it anyway for an short explanation of what the concept of fraternity and sorority is really about. You will not regret it.

Students pack fighting hunger into homecoming week festivities

Here is a good counterpoint to the dismal news of late. The SigEps at Nebraska-Lincoln started a new Homecoming tradition

Students pack fighting hunger into homecoming week festivities : The Lincoln Journal Star Online:
'via Blog this'

University of Nebraska-Lincoln freshman
Katie Pankonin stacks bags of food to be
 sent overseas as part of the Huskers
 Against Hunger event Tuesday, September
25, 2012, at Pershing Center in Lincoln.

Alpha Phi member Megan Freese called the event a bonding experience.

“It’s fun to do with your house,” said Freese, who planned to do two shifts between studying and attending homecoming festivities.

A few tables away, UNL freshman Travis Eakins of Sigma Phi Epsilon summed up his motivations for volunteering in a single sentence:

“It feels good to help people,” he said.

The new homecoming week tradition began last year when Sig Ep members decided that the $4,000 reserved for building a float and to decorate their house for homecoming would be better spent providing food for hungry children in disaster areas. Fraternity members also volunteered with Lincoln Kids Against Hunger to package food.

“It was such an impactful event for our guys, we decided to expand it to a university wide event,” said Max Rodenburg, Sig Ep president and co-chairman of the Huskers Against Hunger event.

Students representing all areas of campus teamed with the local satellite of Kids Against Hunger, a humanitarian food-aid organization that works with volunteers throughout the United States and Canada to package a dry, vitamin-fortified soy-rice casserole that is distributed to starving children and their families in more than 60 countries.

Hoop of Steel Society

The "Hoop of Steel Society" is a new, undergraduate-focused, campaign from the Educational Foundation. Joey Baird sent us this information and a link to the website.

This year at Carlson Leadership Academies across the country the SigEp Educational Foundation is launching the Hoop of Steel Society Campaign. The Hoop of Steel Society Campaign encourages undergraduates to give a gift of at least $19.01 to the Foundation’s annual fund.

By joining the Hoop of Steel Society, undergraduates join alumni and volunteers in helping to support SigEp scholarships and leadership programs, and establish their legacy of giving back to SigEp. They will also be eligible to receive incentives for themselves and their chapters.

To learn more about the program and watch the video which provides even more detail, please visit the SigEp Hoop of Steel Society website.

Vote wisely. Vote Well. Vote now.

The right to vote is one of the most precious rights we have in this country. "We the people" get to choose who will lead us and who will represent us in Congress, in our states and in our local municipalities. We at S&P urge all SigEps to due their civic duty and vote in the elections next week. Many states have an early voting program and you can avoid the rush and crush of election day by taking advantage of the early voting options. Plus, you can get a head start on celebrating your candidate's win (or mourning the loss).

The presidential election this year is one of the most hotly contested that I have seen - and I have been a political junky since the days of Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson. No matter which candidate you favor, chances are you see a win by the other side as a step down the road to ruin. The only way to have any affect on the race is to go and vote your beliefs. With so many people expected to turn out this year - the early voting in Texas is double 2004 - you may think that your vote will not make a difference. I would remind you of Florida in 2000. Less than a 1000 vote margin ultimately decided the course of the country for the next 8 years. Whether you think that course was the correct one or not, imagine how those Florida voters who did not bother to vote feel about their choice. Once when I was in college and working on the Mayor's race my candidate lost by 29 votes. Don't tell me "it doesn't matter"!

SigEp proudly claims to be "building balanced leaders for the worlds communities." One of the obligations of a leader is to participate in the change he would make. What better way to practice that on a personal level than to help chose the path our country will take?

Go. Vote. Now. You will feel good about yourself. You also get the right to bitch about those jerks in Washington when they screw everything up - again!

Fraternities Seeking Student Learning Outcomes

DELTA SIGMA PHI, DELTA UPSILON FRATERNITIES ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP

Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Upsilon Fraternities have announced a partnership centered on a shared commitment to utilizing student learning outcomes as a basis for informing student programming and fraternity operations. The two organizations have contracted with the Center for Learning Outcomes Assessment and the Center for the Study of the College Fraternity to measure their members’ experience.

The 2007 American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) College Learning for the New Global Century report has served as a call to action for the fraternities. The report recommends a set of Essential Learning Outcomes that outline the hallmarks of the 21st Century college graduate. To remain relevant with an ever-changing global society and to align with the educational mission of higher education, Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Upsilon will make assessment of student learning outcomes a top priority.

“This initiative is about the shared commitment of Delta Upsilon and Delta Sigma Phi Fraternities and their leadership to remain a relevant and vital contributor to the development of young men of high moral character,” said Scott Wiley, Executive Director of Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity. “Instead of talking about ways to collaborate our two organizations are choosing to act.”

The assessments will begin immediately with a set of pilot chapters this fall. The two organizations will hold a joint board meeting in January to review the initial data.
“Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Upsilon share a common mission of building better men and desire to be partners with higher education,” Justin Kirk, Delta Upsilon Executive Director said. “We want to use assessment as a means of ensuring that our rhetoric is congruent with our reality.”

The Center for Learning Outcomes Assessment will administer the University Learning Outcomes Assessment (UniLoa).The UniLoa is an assessment tool designed to measure student behaviors and development in seven domains regarded as critical by employers and experts in the field of higher education.

Dr. Mark Frederick, co-developer of the UniLoa, believes the partnership presents a tremendous opportunity.

“Fraternities and sororities are in a unique position to positively impact holistic student growth, learning, and development. By accurately understanding and measuring current levels of student behaviors, those organizations can move swiftly to develop programs and interventions designed to overcome weaknesses. As such, they can better prepare their members to succeed after graduation and to make significant contributions to themselves and the world around them,” said Frederick.

The organizations will also work with the Center for the Study of the College Fraternity (CSCF) using the Fraternity / Sorority Experience Assessment (FSES). The FSES measures eleven critical components of a chapter’s environment.

"These fraternities are setting an assessment precedent. The examination of both individual learning outcomes and correlating it with how their fraternity's environmental factors contribute to students' success will change, elevate, and solidify the value fraternity adds to the collegiate experience,” said Steve Veldkamp, Executive Director of the CSCF.

For more information on the partnership, please contact:
Justin Kirk - Executive Director, Delta Upsilon Fraternity
kirk@deltau.org - (317) 875-8900
Scott Wiley – Executive Director, Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity
wiley@deltasig.org - (317) 634-1899
Dr. Mark Frederick – Center for Learning Outcomes Assessment
mfrederick@isugw.indstate.edu – (812) 237-3888
Steve Veldkamp – Center for the Study of the College Fraternity
Veldkamp@indiana.edu – (812) 855-4311

Georgia Sig Ep Writes War Journal for Daughter

Update: To read an excerpt or purchase the book - go to www.bartnewman.com

Soldier's words from Iraq can inspire us all
By Gracie Bonds Staples
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bart Newman knew he might not come back to his wife and little girl.

He remembered the journal his wife, Julie, had given him the day he pulled out of Fort Bragg, N.C., headed for war in Baghdad.

Bart Newman turned his journal of things he wanted his daughter to know, in case he didn't make it home from Iraq, into a book.

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Bart Newman, 32, reads passages from his Iraq journal to his daughter Kate at their Marietta home.

"Record some thoughts while in Iraq," she scribbled inside the cover. "Some day, I suppose we will look back on this year and wonder how we made it."

She quoted a favorite Bible passage: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are washing away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal."

She ended with, "I love you and count the days until we are together again."

Newman had volunteered for this war. He knew the danger involved but had looked forward to military service since his senior year in high school, when he was awarded an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy. Two weeks before he was scheduled to report, Newman was medically discharged because of childhood asthma. He headed to the University of Georgia instead.

The Woodward Academy grad excelled at UGA. He served as president of the student government association, was a founding father of the Georgia Delta chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon and a member of two SEC Championship tennis teams.

He was in his second year of law school when the World Trade Center collapsed on the day we simply refer to now as 9/11.

When the army started recruiting, Bart Newman saw a chance to do what he always wanted.

The army disqualified him too, but this time he wouldn't take no for an answer. He sought a waiver and got it.

It was the summer of 2003. America had been in Iraq four months.

On February 3, 2005, Bart Newman headed for Baghdad.

His job was to advise the command on legal issues and attend daily briefings on the state of the war.

At the end of each of those briefings, the chaplain introduced "The Hero of the Day," a fallen soldier. That part always held Bart Newman's attention.

Day after day, month after month, the men's stories haunted Newman. He was a husband and father just like many of them. They hadn't gotten out alive. Maybe he wouldn't either.

He thought about his 18-month-old daughter, Kate, and what he would say to her about life if he didn't come home to say it.

Bart Newman had a lot to say about God; about choosing a husband and about what she might do with her life.

He told his baby girl to make Jesus the center of her life because there was nothing more important than figuring out where she'd spend eternity when she died.

He told her about his relationship with her mother, Jules, as he calls her; that he believed we could have marriages of passion, devotion and love if we'd only see our relationship with our spouse the way God does and not the way the world does; and instead of asking what she would do with her life, ask herself "how will eternity be different because of me?"

The God that Bart Newman hoped Kate would one day believe in was the same one at the center of his prayers. "Protect me and if I don't come home, protect my wife and daughter."

Months later in January 2006, Bart Newman returned to his family in Fort Bragg and eventually to Marietta, where they live.

In a large law office conference room overlooking downtown Atlanta, he talked recently about Jules, Kate, his 14-month-old son, Luke, a third child due in May and the journal he kept while in Iraq. He has since turned the journal into a book, "Because of Baghdad: What a father would say about life if he didn't come home to say it."

It's dedicated to Kate, Luke and the children he might have in the future but any one of us would be better for reading it.

Soldier's words from Iraq can inspire us all | ajc.com