2017 Year-End Message from the Grand Council

We’re in the season of celebration and Sigma Pi Fraternity has much to celebrate in 2017.

Throughout the year, our undergraduates did an awesome job of strengthening the Sigma Pi brand across North America.  Take a look at some of the highlights from across the Fraternity from the last year:

• This year was a great year for breathing new life into some of our dormant chapters.  In February, we rechartered Epsilon-Beta Chapter at the University of Kentucky and initiated more than 40 new brothers in the process.  This was followed by rechartering our Eta-Kappa Chapter at East Carolina University in March.  The Eta-Kappa rechartering brought the Fraternity 50 new undergraduate brothers.  Up next was Beta-Iota Chapter’s rechartering at Northern Arizona University in April, where nearly 70 new brothers were initiated.  Later in April, the Fraternity rechartered Epsilon-Nu Chapter at Cal State-Fullerton.  The Epsilon-Nu rechartering ceremony was our biggest of the year and saw 80 young men join the ranks as fully initiated brothers of the Fraternity.  This past fall, the Fraternity rechartered its Epsilon-Eta Chapter at Illinois State University.  During this rechartering ceremony, the Fraternity welcomed more than 60 new initiates from Epsilon-Eta Chapter and the still-dormant Epsilon-Gamma Chapter at Illinois Wesleyan University.  The Fraternity closed out 2017 by rechartering Eta-Sigma Chapter at Colorado State University in December, where more than 40 new initiates joined Sigma Pi.  Combined, 2017 saw 6 dormant chapters brought back to life.  Together, these rechartered chapters brought about 350 new undergraduates into the Fraternity.  YOUR success in expansion in 2017 is just the beginning as there are plans to, hopefully, recharter Zeta (Ohio Northern University), Chi (University of Pittsburgh), Alpha-Xi (Cal State-Fresno), Epsilon-Theta (Elon), and Eta-Nu (Towson University) Chapters in the near future as well as continue expanding by creating a new chapter at FDU-Florham!
• This past July saw the Fraternity begin a new program with the inaugural M. Atlee Ermold Ritual Institute.  Named after Past Grand Sage M. Atlee Ermold, the Institute brought together 25 undergraduate and alumni attendees for a full-day session at Middle Tennessee State University.  The topics and discussions throughout the day focused on the Fraternity’s ritual, The Golden Quest.
• At the request of undergraduate leaders across the country, the Fraternity redesigned several critical elements of our Mid-Year Leadership Conference.  First, the conference now takes place earlier in the month of January to accommodate the many important campus and recruitment-focused events that our undergraduates need to attend later in January.  Second, our undergraduates asked for future conferences to include more time for fellowship and learning from one another’s successes and programming.  To answer this request, the Fraternity added an additional day to the event beginning with next week’s 2018 Mid-Year Leadership Conference!
• Many of our members want to learn more about the Fraternity and how it operates at the Grand Council and Executive Office levels.  To help make learning about these operations easier, the Fraternity revised its Policy Governance Manual from top-to-bottom and reorganized the manual to make it easier to consume.  In addition, the Fraternity is providing policy governance training to all alumni volunteers at the 2018 Mid-Year Leadership Conference.  This training will be conducted by Dr. Lynn Walker, the creator of Boundary Management – the version of policy governance used by the Grand Council and Executive Office.
• At the beginning of this biennium, each member of the Grand Council committed to individually raising or donating $10,000 for the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation (thus combined, the Council committed to raising $70,000 for the Foundation over the course of the biennium).  As of this year-end update, the Council has either donated or raised more than $45,000 in support of the Foundation – about 65% of the total goal!
• And speaking of the Foundation, in July the Fraternity and Foundation agreed in principle to enter into a staff sharing agreement that will see the Fraternity’s staff begin working on achieving Foundation goals.  The final agreement is expected to be signed next week at the Mid-Year Leadership Conference and will usher in a new era of collaboration between the Fraternity and the Foundation.  Leading this combined effort will be Jonathan M. Frost – the Fraternity’s Chief Executive Officer who joined the Executive Office this year in July.

It is our honor to work with our undergraduates and alumni volunteers as they make real the Fraternity’s ideals in their daily lives.

IST,

Grand Sage Steve Lawler
and the Grand Council of Sigma Pi Fraternity