The Alpha Rho pledge class, October fun

The Alpha Rho pledge class

Michael Hinojosa '13. Dallas, TX. Passionate about philosophy and government; his big brother Bobby Yu attests that Michael has "read about many philosophies and governments".

Patrick Jolicoeur '13. Brockton, MA. Cousin of brother Patrick Jean-Baptiste. I'm predicting it now - he'll break out his standup comedy career with a vengeance in 2014.

Nick Kogl '13. South Africa. There is nothing uncool about Nick. He lives hard. Intriguing fact: he is taking Chinese and is interested in China's political ties to South Africa.

Veselin Kulev '11. Varna, Bulgaria. In the words of his big brother Nick Wage, Vesko is "a baller and a champ". Case in point: Vesko spent last summer living in a Vegas hotel working on a tech startup and rubbing shoulders with some of the world's best poker players.

Peter Knudson '13. Minneapolis, MN. Peter looks eerily similar to brother Tony Fazio, who he spends a lot of time with as a member of the rugby team. Generous and humble to a fault, and never unexciting.

Nick Moore '13. New York, NY. Though he claims to hail from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, many suspect that he was actually raised by Richard Pryor and Sarah Silverman, as he is too funny and has too much street cred to have grown up below 128th street.

Brian Plancher '13. Greenwich, CT. Brian has been 100% committed to Sigma Chi; he has blazed through pledge meals, homework, and memorizations, and he is often at the house hanging out with brothers.

Andrew Spielvogel '13. Lexington, MA. Andrew comes to us by way of the ski team. Brothers Alec Boardman and Chris Kinner brought him out to rush and we haven't regretted it. Like the eminent Calvin Coolidge, Andrew says much in saying little.

Siva Sundaram '13. Rockford, IL. Siva has a heart of gold. He is an active CityStep volunteer and he impresses all at our parties with his sweet dance moves.

Stanley Zheng '13. Garrett Hill, PA. Stanley is the rising star of the Sigma Chi North contingent (i.e. Currier). His 6 blockmates are all Sigs and we look forward to welcoming him into our brotherhood despite his love of the Eagles.

This pledge class has been amazing. Many thanks go to Magister Madison Klein and Assistant Magister Brandon Silverman. The Alpha Rhos threw their party on October 24th; the theme was a Communist Party. At their pledge dinner, they managed served an edible (and some report, even mildly delicious) spaghetti dinner. Moreover, their skits and jokes were spot on. As I write this, they're living it up on their pledge trip to Columbia University.

Chapter

Five brothers are currently attending Province chapter, which is taking place at the MIT and BU houses in Boston. Also, we are in the process of rewriting our bylaws for greater relevance, clarity, and sustainability. The effort has begun with Matt Vollenweider's proposed revision of the financial bylaws to maintain higher and more rapid dues collection.

House

Historian Devon Long and chapter advisor Dan Craig dug up a partial ownership history of 1124 Mass Ave that goes back as far as 1872. Nick Wage is helping them to catalog 19th century books that have been found in the house. House chair Mitch Denti has been documenting and photographing parts of the house in need of repair. Magister Madison Klein has implemented a post-party cleanup plan in which pledges and their big brothers are responsible for cleaning up before and after parties.

Community Service

On October 4th, Chris Kinner, Patrick Jean-Baptiste, and Tom Wang volunteered at a Patriots game selling towels to support breast cancer research:

Left to right: Friend, Chris Kinner, Patrick Jean-Baptiste, Tom Wang

On October 31st, community service chair Osman Shawkat led a Habitat for Humanity build. A good time was had by all and definite progress was made on the build:

Top, left to right: Matt Vollenweider, Teddy Coleman, Friend, Osman Shawkat, Friends.
Bottom, left to right: Pat Li, Nick Wage, Devon Long, Erik Kuld, Chris Kinner, Friends

Community service opportunities on the horizon include working at the Harvard Square homeless shelter, building neighborhood playgrounds with Kaboom, and mentoring elementary school students in a partnership through the Harvard Youth Leadership Initiative led by our very own Tom Wang.

Social

Brothers have been hanging out in record numbers this semester. Just a taste of what's happened: I organized an outing to a Macallan scotch tasting, various brothers have been frequenting the MIT chapter's Wednesday night teas, Nick Wage continues to preserve Monday Night Festivities (Football) as a time-honored tradition, and a contingent tore it up at the Zac Brown concert. Social brothers chair Tony Huang has done great work organizing weekly brotherhood dinners, a movie outing, and the indispensable Man's Day, which was won by Papa Chakravarthy. Lastly, I have been throwing pretty banging parties.

Alumni happenings

This news is a little late, but better than never - Irwin Chen got married at the end of September.

Also a little late - the Ali and Hadi Partovi's company iLike was sold to MySpace. Ali probably never thought his first assignment as a Myspace VP would ever come to surface in the Kappa Eta Sigma Chi circle, but I'm awesome with Google. Here's a link to Ali's embarassing video.

Lastly, please join us on November 21st for Harvard-Yale. Here's the Evite.