Hello Brothers, Alumni, and Volunteers. This will be the first issue of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Wisconsin Theta Chapter Newsletter. This newsletter intends to inform friends of our chapter a summary of our chapter’s news, achievements, and happenings from the past month.
For starters it is incredible how fast time flies during the semester, we are already 5 weeks into our semester and are rapidly approaching our spring break in less than a week. This month our chapter engaged in many events that were new to our chapter. We also saw a significant increase in our interactions with our Alumni which we always love to see. Our entire executive board is very motivated to continue our strong momentum into the rest of the semester to improve our chapter.
A summary of the important/substantial events this semester are as follows: Tom Barton speaking to our chapter about building better lives for ourselves, best chapter GPA at UW Platteville among all Greek life scoring a 3.44 GPA, Volunteering in Platteville, Madison, and Dubuque, Executive board attendance at the Carlson Leadership academy and exciting programming for all our brothers.
The most substantial of the events as previously mentioned is Tom Barton’s presentation to our brothers about planning for a successful future and what makes a good leader. Many of our brothers in attendance were shocked by the information that was presented and left that night having made new goals to aspire to and ideas on how to improve themselves as men. We cannot thank Tom enough for his continued support for Wisconsin Theta, as it is always an immense pleasure of our whenever he comes to visit Platteville, as he is a role model to many of us.
One of our VP of Programming, Kyle Brown’s goals for this semester was to create fun and interesting programming for our chapter in his term. Upon a survey of brothers, it is glaringly obvious that he is succeeding in achieving his goal. Some of the events we have held this semester so far are a trip to the Dubuque River Museum, Presentation night, a Jackbox games night, and more new events in the future! On the topic of goals set by executive board members, brother Tim Highum, VP of Member Developments has hosted the most events with alumni this semester than more recent semesters. His events have worked towards preparing brothers for job interviews, careers in their majors, and informing brothers of our chapter’s vibrant history.
On another exciting note, we currently have 18 brothers in the Epsilon challenge with many of them quickly approaching the Brother Mentor challenge. Since we have so many Epsilons, we also have numerous brothers working on Epsilon Projects! Last semester brother Jason Rose Jr. did a toy drive with Toys-for-Tots and brother Jacob Feltz did a food drive with Family Advocacy in Platteville. Already this semester brother Jeffrey Pingel is doing a food drive with Pioneer Provisions a food pantry on campus. Many more brothers will be doing Epsilon projects this semester, if you can donate any funds to them, it would be greatly appreciated!
Looking ahead to the rest of the semester we are looking forward to our first Burning Heart since 2019! As many of you can remember we put on a big show for our Burning Heart ritual by lighting up the UW-Platteville M for the ritual. We eagerly await the return of many alumni for Spring Banquet and Burning Heart this spring. Spring Banquet is currently planned for April 30th, 2022. Another thing that Wisconsin Theta is looking forward to this year is moving into our new house on Southwest Road this summer. If you are interested in reading more about our new house you can read the article Christopher Yerges wrote in 2021 on the project.
March will be another exciting month for SigEp Wisconsin Theta! Tune in next month for the next installment of the Chapter Newsletter.
VDBL
-Sean McGrath
UW-Platteville
Sigma Phi Epsilon VP of Communications
Email: mcgrathse@uwplatt.edu