Cool. I was a charter member. When we re-chartered at FSU in 1987, we had 61 brothers. That's the most undergraduates ever initiated at a Phi Psi chartering. Your chartering will have more than 61, but you have all of those alumni from Phi Gamma Chi. If you need any help with recruiting ideas, feel free to ask.

Also, my chapter brother, Chris Photiou, lives north of Detroit. He's been to few of your colony meetings. He's a very cool guy, and if you get the chance, you should hang out with him.

Thank you for the warm welcome brother, I will take you up on the advice you gave as well as the offer of help.

I was at the Binghamton chartering on Saturday, and I was part of the installation team. Phi Kappa Psi is now a stronger fraternity thanks to 32 new brothers.

Also, three of the Oneonta colony brothers dropped by on Friday for the reception. I met with these gentlemen in December, and this is another very promising group.

Upstate New York will soon have 6 chapters. Not too shabby. If we can just get Colgate and Hobart back up there, and Columbia and Poly back down here (plus NYU, which I'm working on,) we'll be looking quite good in the Empire State.

New Director of Expansion
 

Alec Traub (Cal Kappa '99) is our new Director of Expansion. He has professional experience as a recruiter, and we expect him to be absolutely outstanding. He succeeds Eric Parker (Iowa Alpha, '00) who returns to the University of Iowa to attend law school.

Re: Extension
 

That's me! I'm Joel Taylor, listed as the Secretary for the colony. This fall I'll be one of 2 New Member Educators for the colony.

Our colony at a glance:
-recolonization on February 12, 2004 with 6 members
-ended Spring Semester with 8 members
-Summer Rush, as of June 25th, has gained 4 pledges.
-Membership goal is to be up to 20 or 25 members by Labor Day with summer rush.

8 members:
Calvin Truong, President
Mike Kline, Treasurer
Joel Taylor, Secretary
Scott Klingbeil, Philanthropy and Service
Joe Ogrin, Social
Matt Solnitzki, Recruitment
Tim Miller, Alumni Relations
Morgan McChurch, Public Relations

We've got a strong internal organization thanks to support from Head Quarters and local alumni. Now our focus is on finding and recruiting men that meet the values and goals of Phi Kappa Psi.

Iowa Beta
 

That's great! When do you move back into the house?

Several of our alumni are working to bring about a complete renovation of the house- after almost 85 years the house is showing it's age and the fraternity that rented the house while Phi Psi was not here the last 5 years... didnt keep the place up very well. The phrase we're hearing regularly from the alumni is "You work on rebuilding the chapter and we'll work on rebuilding the house".

It looks like fall of 2005 or spring of 2006 for moving into the house. If it's spring 2006 then we'll be having talks with the university to see if we can all live together in the dorms next fall.

UC-Merced
 

Russ--

I've heard that UC-Merced will be open for a Greek system, but not until a significant time after the student body association is established in Fall of 2005. It would be nice to see a Phi Psi chapter there, considering the strength of our brothers in UCLA (Cal Epsilon) and UCI (Cal Kappa). I've heard from our Hyparchos, who is a graduate of Davis, that efforts to return to UC-Davis (Cal Iota) should produce results in the near future.

There is also an extremely strong alumni base of brothers from UC-Berkeley (Cal Gamma); in fact I've met more of them from here to Cabo than alumni from my own chapter. They of course are working for a return but it could take years, especially considering the competitive nature of Berkeley's Greek system and the (I believe) repeated failures to recolonize over the last decade. Personally, I'd like to see another chapter in San Diego, either USD or UC-SD, if only because Cal Lambda seems to be doing extremely well down there.

-Jeff Lee
California Beta, Stanford University

Re: UC-Merced
 

Jeff,

As Director of the Hyparchos Network, I've had discussions with Mark Wong (your Hyparchon) about reviving his chapter. I've been very supportive of bringing back Cal Iota, and I've encouraged him to use his position to help make that possible. I can't tell you when this will happen, but Mark seems to have all of his ducks in a row. He has told me that he hopes to get the assistance from Cal Beta, and that seems appropriate. I see your chapter as being the anchor of that region.

After we get Cal Iota back, Cal Gamma makes a lot of sense. Their alumni have stayed organized, and Berkeley is a great school (although few from your chapter would admit to that ;).)

UC Merced is a school that I've been following for several years, but is sounds like you know more about it than me. I would say that the first step is to organize an AA in that area. Such an AA, like all AAs, should really exist for alumni, and not local chapters. Once a successful AA is established, there will be a subset of its members who will happily form the core of alumni support for a new chapter.

If you know any Phi Psis who live in Merced, you might want to float the idea of starting an AA by them.

As far as San Diego goes, I agree that both USD and UCSD should eventually have Phi Psi chapters. San Diego is a long drive from Stanford, so leading that charge won't be easy. Like Merced, our best chance to get in to either school, is for local alumni to lead.

An important thing to remember is that there are over 1,200 accredited schools in the US and Canada that, theoretically, could have Phi Psi chapters. Over 600 of these schools have at least one chapter of an NIC fraternity. Of these schools, most are schools that we would pass on. There are still well over a hundred (almost 200 by my count) host institutions that I believe should eventually get a Phi Psi chapter. That's a lot. We are currently colonizing at a rate of 4/year, which is the highest rate of sustained extension in Phi Psi's history. I've seen the spreadsheet that our last Director of Expansion used, and it was huge. We perfom triage on this list in a number of ways, but the most effective way to move a school to the front of the list is to have existing alumni support.

If you recommend a school, HQ probably already knows about it. There is nothing wrong with contacting our current Director of Expansion and suggesting a school. If you want to do so effectively, you should be able to offer alumni support (and we're talking time, rarely money) to a proposed project. If you can't be involved, you should know someone who can.

I hope this helps, and I hope to see all of the schools that you mentioned come to host a Phi Psi chapter.

3 of us were talking about Iowa Gamma (Cornell College) and Iowa Delta (Simpson College) when we were waiting for a prospective member earlier today. Neither of which has existed in 136 and 115 years respectively.

Of the 2, Iowa Delta would have the greater chance of coming back. Simpson has 4 sororities (all national) and 4 fraternities (ATO, SigEp, LambdaChi and a local) and a steady student population of 2,000.

Cornell College... has several GLOs but they're all locals. The chance of a national joining the scene seems slight.

The other topic was of the University of Northern Iowa as a potential expansion point... Iowa Epsilon.

So after about 5 minutes of talking about this we got back on track of discussing what needs to be done with recruitment for the next week.

Iowa
 

We have to get Iowa Beta back on track first.

Iowa Gamma might be a possibility if Cornell College forces their greek system to go national.

The revival of Iowa Delta will probably have to come from either an interest group, or a local alumni initiative.

Brothers,

This is one of my first posts here, but it is one of deep heartfelt thanks. I am a brother of the NY Kappa Chapter, (Phi Psi's newest chapter) and I just wanted to take a moment on behalf of my brothers as well as myself to say thank you for all your support. We were installed, July 8, 2004, at The GAC in SD. This was one of the greatest honors that anyone could have bestowed upon us. I can not begin to explain to you the feeling that I and I am sure that everyone of my brothers as well felt when we turned around to see a room full of our brothers from all chapters across the country, in a standing ovation for us. So thank you again. Proud to be a Phi Psi and continuing the growth of the best fraternity in the nation.

Amici,

Matthew Sullivan ...
9

Matt,

New York Kappa makes me proud. It was a great feeling to see your initiation.

Cal Iota
 

I just got this from Mark Wong (Cal Iota, '88)

----------------------------------------------------------

Brothers and friends,

I just wanted to give everyone an update on our efforts to get Cal
Iota back at UC Davis. We on the planning committee are truly
excited that recruitment week is finally here.

Our recruitment effort will begin this Tuesday Oct. 12th. We are
expecting about a dozen undergraduates from Cal Kappa at UC Irvine
to arrive on Thursday Oct. 14th; they will be here in Davis until
Sunday the 17th. Our brothers from Cal Beta at Stanford will arrive
on Thursday the 21st and will be here until Sunday the 24th. We are
extremely delighted to announce that an undergraduate brother from
Arizona Alpha, Rob "Woody" Woodson, will help out with our
recruiting effort for this first week. In addition, we have enlisted
the support of the Alpha Chi Omega Sorority. These women have been
invaluable to us and their generosity and insight is very greatly
apprecited.

We have some alumni specific events that need your support and
attendance. They include: Pizza Luncheon on Saturday Oct. 16th
(sponsored by NorCal AA), and the Steak and Cigar Dinner on Friday
Oct. 22nd. All alumni are welcome to attend both of these events to
meet and greet the prospective members. In addition, if you'd like
to help out with other events please email Travis Nagler at
thnagler@ucdavis.edu for further information.

Speaking of Travis, Travis has designed and maintains our website,
please note that we've had a domain name change from our beta site,
the new site is www.DavisPhiPsi.com.

On behalf of Steve Platt (Cal Kappa), Nick Bourke (Cal Beta), Travis
Nagler (Cal Iota), and Dr. Richard Naval (Cal Iota), I want to thank
you for your support on this endeavor and I look forward to seeing
you all soon.

Damm glad to be a Phi Psi,

Mark Wong
Cal Iota

It would be fantastic to get more California chapters-especially in Northern California! Having been around at Cal Beta when Cal Gamma had a chapter, it was actually fun to visit them during Big Game week (except for the 1982 Big Game, which will always go unmentioned!):mad:. But as the years have passed, it has been good to see the Cal Gamma brothers at the Big Game Luncheon and at Harrington's afterwards (quite a tradition that we share). And getting Cal Iota back would be good as well, as it would be nice to stop by and see them on the way to Reno or Tahoe! Good luck at UC-Davis, and I really look forward to their coming back into the Phi Psi fold!

Steve Miller...
California Beta, '83

P.S.: Brother Jeff, how was the Homecoming Dinner? I really wanted to attend, but after sitting in the rain at the Stanford-Oregon game, I was wet and ready to go home! Hope that it went well, and maybe I'll see you guys at the Big Game Luncheon!


BEAT CAL!!!:D :D