As we approach the end of the school year the Tucson Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter would like to communicate to you that we are particularly pleased with the progress that your sons have made.
As parents we are all aware of the challenges faced by high school seniors as they begin their college journey and arrive on campus as freshmen. The friendships that they make and their classroom experiences are critical to building their self confidence during this time period. The sophomore and junior years are likely to involve moving out of a dormitory environment, selecting a major and starting to think about a career strategy in their junior year.
The junior year oftentimes involves participating in summer internships, and some initial visits to the career placement center. As we can all recall, the senior year appears to arrive without proper notice as our sons prepare personal resumes, practice mock interviews and start to go through the job interview process. During the past two years the difficult economic environment has made this a challenging task for our sons.
We believe that one of the critical roles of the alumni chapter is to provide a healthy college environment for your sons. This responsibility initially starts by having our alumni work closely with those undergraduates that have been elected chapter officers. As many of you are aware, the chapter officers participate in an annual training program prior to the beginning of the school year. In addition, the alumni chapter adviser and other alumni are actively involved in the annual rush activities, the pledge initiation program and monthly meetings with the undergraduate officers. In addition, during this past year, an alumni mentoring program was made available to those junior and senior undergraduates that were seeking career planning advice and wanted to to meet with individual alumni to discuss specific industry opportunities.
In this letter we would like to provide you with some undergraduate background information on the following five subjects that we hope you will find helpful:
1. Chapter Membership Size: We currently have 105 undergraduate, actives and pledges, who are affiliated with the Beta Phi Chapter. This year there was a fall 34 pledge class of 34 and a spring class of eight pledges. As you are aware, each of the pledges is assigned to an upper classman that will serve as a pledge father and be a helpful resource to him during his initial year on campus. At the end of his successful pledging period he will participate in an initiation and become an active member of the Beta Phi Chapter.
2. Chapter Academic Performance: The Beta Phi Chapter is currently one of the top ranked fraternities on campus in terms of academic performance (GPA Number?) The fraternity has several National Merit Scholars in its membership and has had members participate in the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary in the past. Academic performance is a critical element that is carefully evaluated in selecting Beta Phi Pledge candidates.
3. Chapter House Living: Forty-one actives reside in the Sigma Chi house on campus. Regular meals are served to all fraternity members and chapter meetings are held weekly in the house. The cost of renting at the house is comparable to dormitory rates and less expensive then apartment rentals.
4. Derby Days: The annual Derby Days event functions as an action-packed fundraiser for worthwhile non-profit groups. This year over 700 sorority members participated in the event- involving individual skits, a massive T-shirt signing project and group competition as well as other activities. We raised over $14,000, which was donated to the Diamond Children’s Hospital and the Steele Children’s Research Center at the U of A.
5. Chapter Advisory Roles: As noted previously, the alumni chapter provides ongoing advisory resources to the Beta Phi undergraduates. Robin Winters (current chapter advisor) Steve Schuyler (president, alumni chapter) and Jim Campbell (Sigma Chi Building Corporation president) all have ongoing relationships with the undergraduates. In addition, the recently introduced alumni chapter mentoring program for the junior and senior undergraduate members has been very popular.
Please feel free to call on Robin Winters, Steve Schuyler or Jim Campbell if you have any questions that you would like to have addressed. We are are looking forward to meeting the parents at the annual Parents Weekend this fall or at the Homecoming festivities that are planned for the Nov. 4-6 weekend.
