Fall Term Update - 2015

It is hard to believe that the fall semester has already come to a close!! Being on the AAB for a couple years now, I have noticed several great improvements beginning to surface as we start to gain momentum from being back on campus. Listed below are some of the highlights:

• The year started off early with a couple brothers competing for Transylvania Athletics. These men gave it their all and did great this year! Bryce Schwirling stared in several Soccer games for Transylvania, but made the decision to focus on more his academics. Alex Czjuko competed in Cross Country getting several PR's and finished in the TU Top 10 times!

• The Chapter Self-Assessment the second year back yielded positive results! The chapter scored 61.77, which puts us in the "Performing" category of Pike Nationals. Having a clear direction of what we need to accomplish this upcoming winter term will help us focus more on what we need to accomplish and should put us in the next higher category of "Near Excellent"!

• Kappa also helped Lexington become an even more beautiful city by volunteering several different times for the rural road cleanup with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. The chapter was able to remove several hundreds of pounds of litter from these rural roads, streams and open areas. This effort counted towards the chapters' community service hours and helped everyone gain an appreciation for discarding trash properly.

• Recruitment!! Just to start, WOW!! The chapter went above and beyond the formal recruitment events that the university hosted this past year and set up several additional events to get the best men on campus. Our first attempt with this expanded recruitment was a success. We had several new opportunities to meet with the incoming class, which helped the chapter better focus our decision of who to give bids to. We are really excited about the men that joined us during the formal recruitment process. We now have several new options to utilize for recruitment, which will help us to get the best men on campus. Also, a special thank you to Brother Tim & Nancy Sprague, who put in numerous hours to make sure this year's Smoker was top notch and helped make the location feel like a real Pike House!

• The chapter was fortunate enough to have Kim Novak, Director of Health & Safety of Pi Kappa Alpha come to speak to the chapter and all the entire student body of Transylvania. Kim Novak is well known and highly respected as a leader among the Greek community in the field of Risk Management. These sessions held on campus included "Understanding student risk and current trends," "Becoming values-congruent Greek leaders," "The linear equation for leading change," "Chapter Accountability Models/Assigning Sanctions," "Do Something! Acting on reports of high risk behavior," and "Let's REALLY Talk Values." This visit was not one of those "because we had to" but "because we wanted to" type of event. Kappa men have met Kim at several Pike University events and she really understands what is happening in the Pike chapters and the Greek community. Her style of giving insight on some really difficult topics in a relatable and fun way at these Pike U events is why we wanted her to come to the Transylvania campus. Again, we would like to thank Kim Novak for taking the time to visit Kappa Chapter and Transylvania University.

• Pi Kappa Alpha continues to hold the title Mr. Pioneer! Senior and Chapter President of the Kappa Chapter, Richard Shufelt was elected to the highly sought after title of Mr. Pioneer! Also pictured, senior Grace Jung Jung won the title of Ms. Pioneer. This is the second consecutive year Mr. Pioneer remains in the Kappa Chapter's possession. Recent alumni Ajibola Babatunde, was last year's Mr. Pioneer recipient for the chapters first year being back on campus.

• The new ingress program, which is held prior to initiation, was really successful! Several active members were initially skeptical, but after participating I made it a point to ask what the brothers thought. All of them really enjoyed it and were impressed more with the incoming class. Also, they thought it really prepared the new members to gain a better appreciation for our initiation ritual and a better understanding of the fraternity going forward! If you happen to be around during the next ingress period, I encourage you to attend one of the sessions to see the direction which the chapter is heading.

• Directly following ingress, this past fall initiation was held in Old Morrison Chapel. This was my first initiation as an advisor that I observed initiation at Old Morrison and I was excited to be a part of that Kappa tradition and see it continue on! We initiated 7 new brothers into the fraternity and all of them are becoming familiar and helping with several chairmen by learning the roles in the chapter. (Pictured below)

• We also wanted to thank Brother Ronnie Brooks for all his efforts the past several years in establishing the AAB and his role as a former Chapter Advisor. Ronnie has taken a career opportunity in Los Angeles, CA. Even during the recent Chapter struggles he made a special trip from his home in Dallas to meet with the Chapter during the chapters appeal process.

• Additional thanks to Brother Tim Sprague for his undertaking of Chapter Advisor in getting re-established on campus after a brief suspension. Tim has managed to avert several crisis scenarios and helped provided a stable platform for the chapter to excel going into the future. In the end, he felt that the chapter would be better suited to step back from this survival mentality role and have someone take over to build upon the foundation that was set.

• The AAB is happy to welcome Brother Russ Coy to the Board as the new Finance Advisor. Russ’ two terms as Chapter Treasurer in the late 80’s will remind many from that time about the benefits of keeping dues current (and keeping Russ off your back!!). He will work directly with current chapter Treasurer, Vladimir Riggs.

• Thanks also to the Kappa Chapter Faculty/Staff Advisor Diane Fout. Diane is the TU Campus Center Director and has been very active in assisting chapter membership with on-campus events. She is also a regular participant of the Kappa AAB.

• In Tim's departure, I have stepped up to take on the role of Chapter Advisor for the Kappa Chapter. I am an initiate of the Delta Nu chapter at Wayne State University in Detroit and volunteered when the AAB was introduced to Kappa. I come from a chapter that wins the Smythe award regularly from Pike Nationals. I would not only like to help the chapter win our first national chapter award, but that this will be a chapter that will win the Smythe awards annually. Currently, we are in the process of determining the best path forward for Kappa to achieve this. If you would like to volunteer with helping us on this path, please email me at dwonsowski@hotmail.com

Help! We’ve lost contact with our fellow brothers and they are missing! Please take a look at the list below and let us know if you have any news or info for these brothers that we do not have any information about:

• Mark Barfield ‘80

• Ira Harris ‘50

• Thomas Jones ‘54

• Patrick McGuire ‘99

• John Perkins ‘53

• Samuel Scott ‘81

• Lucien Smith ‘69

• Lee Wade ‘99

• Gregory Woods ‘80

Email transypikealumni@gmail.com to give us an updated email address, phone number or physical address of these brothers and the alumni association will reach out to them.

φφka,

Derrick Wonsowski - Kappa Chapter Advisor

Delta Nu '02